Playing with no or few fans in the stands is the ultimate noon kickoff. Schools will do whatever they can to artificially create noise and a homefield advantage, but my takeaway watching the first couple of weeks of football has been that nearly every game has the vibe of those sleepy noon starts regardless of the start time. (The exception was Notre Dame’s home opener. It’s no coincidence that Notre Dame’s ticket policy limited attendance to students and the university community.) That means that teams will generally not have a raucous home environment and must, as Kirby Smart put it before the South Carolina game last year, “get (their) ass ready to play” on their own.

We haven’t had much experience with this phenomenon in the States, but European soccer teams play in front of empty crowds occasionally – most often as punishment for unruly or abusive fans. They’ve also played without fans this spring and summer during the pandemic. An ESPN study found that empty stadiums eroded homefield advantage in the German Bundesliga. “The vibe is a little bit off to be fair,” admitted one player.

The lack of fans might even affect how the games are officiated. Refs are human and, right or wrong, can get caught up in the crowd reaction. Sports Illustrated cited a study from Sweden concluding that “the favorable calls conferred on the home team dropped by 23%–70%” depending on the type of foul. Even more, “they noted that the same referees overseeing the same two teams in the same stadium behaved dramatically differently when spectators were present.” Few calls are as exposed to fan reaction as pass interference, so it will be worth watching who does and doesn’t get those calls this year.

These studies dealt mainly with completely empty venues, and there’s not enough experience yet with crowds the size we’re likely to see across the SEC. It’s not likely that homefield advantage will evaporate, but I think the noon game paradigm is the right way to approach preparation. Georgia has been on both sides of that coin: we all remember last year’s South Carolina game or the 2016 games with Nicholls and Vanderbilt, but there’s also the upset win at Auburn in 2006 or Nick Chubb’s breakout game at Missouri in 2014. The Dawgs have generally been able to focus on the game at hand under Kirby Smart, but there won’t be the frenzied home crowds or even the road takeovers that have become the norm.

The good news for Georgia? “Without spectators, it comes down more to the quality of players,” claimed one German soccer coach. Georgia doesn’t lack for quality players. That said, those players have to be ready to go. Whether it was the horrific faceplant of the Big 12 or Tech knocking off FSU in week 1, less-talented but motivated road underdogs can knock off sleepwalking home favorites without the home crowd to wake things up. Those road teams can isolate and focus on the “business trip” routine. Preparing players to match and surpass the energy level of their opponents will be even more important this year than it usually is, and it will all have to come from inside the team.