shoud be controlled. When the offense lines up the crowd should be forced to be quiet.
Few will agree with me, but then explain why the SEC shut down the cowbells at MSU.
I think it is unfair for the visitors not be be able to hear the QB or even the radios from the bench.
Hahahahah when did the cowbells get shut down? Must have missed that :shock:
The SEC has a rule the cowbells have to to be quiet for the offense to call a play or snap. At other times they can ring them all they want.
“from the time the offensive center is over the football until the play is whistled dead”
They may have a rule, but they don’t enforce it.
Yeah that crowd noise sure stopped the visiting teams today, eh? 
Bingo, that was my hahaha point above
It’d be easy enough to enforce the cowbell rule. Might not be able to stop every individual from ringing one, but if enough are rung to interfere, all a ref has to do is drop a flag. Perhaps a warning the first time. Perhaps 5 yds for delay of game the second time. 10 yds for the 3rd time. I bet there wouldn’t be a 4th time.
The cow bells don’t altogether stop when the opposition lines up for the snap, but they drop quite a bit. It does happen, believe it or not.
You want the crowd involved and loud. I think the issue is the indoor stadiums where it has no place to go. As for the cowbells, I believe they are supposed to stop when they come up to the line of scrimmage. They get one warning and then a penalty. But, there was no warning ever given in their bowl game. The announcers were even questioning why one wasn’t given.
That’s why they call it home-field advantage.
I was thinking the same thing when I saw the OP
Tell me why any team should have a non playing advantage.
You are absolutely right, Bob, few will agree with you because the idea of quieting fans flies in the face of several millenia of tradition. Yelling at sporting events goes back at least to the Roman games in arenas all over the empire. No doubt the citizens of Greece gave voice in support of of their favorites at the original Olympiads. The SEC saw a problem with artificial noise makers and tried to mitigate the cow bells at MSU, but did not go far enough and ban them completely. Why other schools don’t take up some equally obnoxius noise-makers is beyond me. What we need is a good, old-fashioned noise escalation war. Slap sticks could be fun. My point is no artificial noise should be allowed. The tradition of the home-field advantage is a large part of what makes going to a live event worthwhile. Otherwise, a good large UHD TV offers a better view. You sound kind of like a grumpy fan who wants to go a game and sit on his hands and the only yelling you do is yelling at fans who want to stand up and support the team. Those are the ones who should stay home.
I’m not sure, but I think officials used to be able to call penalties for excessive noise. Here is a video from the 1985 Texas-Texas A&M game when the QB refused to get under center and the referee refused to start the clock because the crowd was too loud. Thank goodness we are past that.
[youtube]4NUxFE2oJ-M[/youtube]