Written by Ava Wallace at Washington Post.com
Back when Virginia Tech defensive tackle Woody Baron had the good fortune to wander through Bristol Motor Speedway this spring, the outline of the football field on which he’ll play Saturday was still just that — white chalk lines on dusty asphalt.
“I went by one time and the gates were unlocked, so I just kind of invited myself in,” Baron, a Nashville native, said. “I saw a huge stadium. I mean, it was unfathomably huge.”
“Unfathomably huge” seems an apt description for both the size of the venue that is expected to hold a record crowd of 150,000 when Virginia Tech and No. 17 Tennessee kick off at 8 p.m. Saturday and for the sheer spectacle of the “Battle at Bristol.”
Virginia Tech, meanwhile, is determined to keep things in perspective. The party line in Blacksburg this week is “just another football game.”
“The stage shouldn’t determine the way we prepare or the way we perform,” Coach Justin Fuente said. “So we should prepare in the same manner that we prepared last week. We should do the same things, we should act the same way, because it’s still one football game.”
The only thing the Hokies plan to do differently leading up to the game is have a Friday walk-through at the speedway. Players say excitement over the unique experience hasn’t set in yet, at it hasn’t been discussed in the locker room.
“You prepare for teams different, that’s how you get beat,” sophomore defensive lineman Vinny Mihota said.
Still, anticipation is high for this one football game, set in a border town situated roughly halfway through the 236-mile stretch that separates football-crazy Knoxville, Tenn., and football-crazy Blacksburg. It’s billed as the marquee national game of the week, to be televised in prime time by ABC, and ESPN’s airwaves in recent days have been dominated by commercials hyping the matchup.
The crowd is expected to be easily the largest ever to see an American football game, surpassing the 115,109 that watched Michigan host Notre Dame in 2013. The Hokies’ season opener last week was played in front of 62,234 people; Lane Stadium holds 65,632. The biggest crowd a Hokies team has played before was in the 2014 season opener at Ohio State, a victory in front of a crowd of 107,51
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