For years, Urban Meyer walked into college football’s loudest buildings with a headset on and a play sheet in hand. Night games in Beaver Stadium could rattle the ground. Trips to Kinnick Stadium often turned strange rapidly. Meyer coached in all of them. That’s why his answer about crowd energy as a broadcaster carries weight.

During yesterday’s appearance on The Triple Option podcast, Meyer said one place immediately came to mind when asked about the best atmosphere he had seen as a broadcaster. It was not Ohio Stadium. It was not Texas or Penn State. He pointed to Folsom Field and the environment that has been created around Deion Sanders and Colorado. He remembered arriving for the pregame show an hour early and seeing students already packed near the stage.

“I’m going to go back to Deion Sanders when we went back-to-back out to CU,” Meyer said to Fox Sports’ Rob Stone. “We were an hour early, so I want to say we’re on stage at 8:00 a.m. Or yeah, I think we did a 3-hour one. And out there, that’s 6:00 a.m. So, you’re talking about those students who were out of their minds at 6:00 a.m. Rushing the stage and all, it was fantastic. So, I put Colorado.”

Colorado has a rich history, but not in the near past, before the arrival of Deion Sanders in Boulder. CU couldn’t sell out its tickets for 27 years. But they sold out within weeks in 2023. Then, in 2024, it happened again when Coach Prime led the team to a 9-win season. Not just that, in Sanders’ first season alone, CU reported a whopping $31.2 million in ticketing revenue. That was twice the previous year. 

Overall, the athletic department’s revenue leaped to $146.6 million. Merchandise sales (up 1,200%), donations, and national exposure all swelled. But it’s not just about stadium tickets. Colorado games have become national television events. Networks have placed the Buffs in premium windows. CU’s revenue from multimedia saw a 51% increase in 2023. In 2025, despite CU’s lack of results, Folsom Field still averaged 50,000 attendees per game. 

Coach Prime’s impact was huge. He made Colorado a national story almost overnight. This led to more anticipation. Fans now expect wins and rankings. The crowd gets louder when they believe every game matters. Urban Meyer noticed the difference when he covered Colorado for Big Noon Kickoff. Compared to OSU’s ‘The Game’ atmosphere, CU’s passionate fanbase, of course, lags a bit. Yet, Meyer’s quick answer about Colorado just shows how much the Coach Prime effect has changed the Boulder program in just three full seasons. 

Is Ohio State’s stadium’s environment just large, not loud?

Ohio Stadium regularly draws crowds of more than 100,000. Just last year, the program’s average home attendance was around 104,000. That was 3rd nationally, and the Michigan game, as always, was a spectacle. Last year, to boost fan engagement, OSU even launched its ‘Tradition Evolved’ initiative. That includes the Victory Bell rings before the team’s entrance and the ‘defend the shoe’ tradition. In that, the Buckeyes fans are rewarded with Buckeyes leaves on the scoreboard for forcing false starts or timeouts through crowd noise. That’s why Urban Meyer always included OSU on his list.

“Number one, Texas Tech. That was a great one. Loved it. It’s way up there,” Meyer said about other programs other than Colorado. “You’re going to always have Ohio State because, you know, they love Big Noon and they love us, and they’re a fantastic. But also Iowa. Iowa shows out, and then the Utah-BYU game, once at Utah, the other at BYU. Those are fantastic.”

Despite the large crowd at the Shoe, many have said the environment is large, not loud. Tennessee safety and OSU transfer Andre Turrentine said last year that “the Shoe isn’t as loud as the SEC.” Instead, he pointed to other stadiums, like Neyland Stadium and Arkansas’ stadium, that are louder than Ohio Stadium at night.