Jordan-Hare Stadium is not a friendly environment for opposing quarterbacks, especially those who have never started a Southeastern Conference road game.
Then-freshman quarterback Brandon Harris was thrown into the fire at Jordan-Hare in 2014.
It was Harris’ first career start, coming on the heels of consecutive games in which he vastly outplayed starter Anthony Jennings. He led a comeback effort against Mississippi State that fell just short and blew out New Mexico State the next week.
He was seemingly ready for the matchup, but it was his first career start, on the road, against No. 5 Auburn.
The result: a 41-7 drubbing in Auburn’s favor. LSU’s championship hopes had burnt out, and Harris’ freshman campaign came to an end that October.
In a similar set of circumstances, junior quarterback Danny Etling is making his first career SEC road start at 5:00 p.m. Saturday against Auburn (1-2, 0-1 SEC) at Jordan-Hare Stadium.
“I make sure the guys [that are] playing now know how that atmosphere is,” said senior defensive end Lewis Neal. “We remember being in that stadium, and obviously our goal is to win out the [SEC] West.”
Auburn is No. 18 LSU’s next stop on what it hopes is an undefeated path, but LSU senior wide receiver Travin Dural said playing at Jordan-Hare has never been easy.
“As far as the hardest stadiums [I’ve] ever been at, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, all those places are really tough, but there’s just something about Auburn,” Dural said. “The fans just seem so close. [Those are] some of the best fans I’ve ever seen. They don’t sit down. They don’t ever shut up.”
Though he, like Harris, had never played an SEC road game, the circumstances this time around point to a more favorable situation for Etling and the LSU Tigers in Auburn, Alabama.
Etling has experience on the road against Big 10 powerhouse Michigan, which plays in the largest stadium in the nation. But he said the toughest environment he’s played at is Penn State’s Beaver Stadium in University Park, Pennsylvania.
Then-freshman Etling and his Purdue Boilermakers lost 45-21 to Penn State in the country’s second-largest stadium, with a capacity of 4,251 more than Tiger Stadium and 19,121 greater than Jordan-Hare, which ostensibly prepared him for hostile southern football fans.
“Penn State was real loud,” Etling said. “There was a fourth down call in that game, I was trying to make the call, and they were just yelling. [My teammates] couldn’t hear me.
“Obviously [Jordan-Hare’s] going to be a tough place to play, but it’s something that we can handle. It shouldn’t be the deciding factor in whether we win or lose.”
Also on LSU’s side are five starters and 16 others who played in the 2014 beatdown and have pinpointed what went wrong, preparing themselves and the underclassmen accordingly.
The stage was too big.
Dural recalls that the receivers weren’t open for Harris and, consequently, the rushing attack couldn’t catch on because the passing game was ineffective. It was the second worst game he’s played in, ranking only after a 63-0 walloping against Acadiana in high school — one he can’t put behind him, he said.
“Auburn, after watching some film on them, they’re a very talented team,” Etling said. “We have to take them really seriously … Hopefully I get us fired up and put on a good show.”