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Kyle Field at Texas A&M

By Tim Hyland, About.com

Kyle Field

Opposing teams find that it's difficult to hear - - and even more difficult to win - - at Texas A&M's Kyle Field.

(Brian Bahr/Getty Images)
Texas A&M’s Kyle Field isn’t loud by accident.

No, fans down in College Station actually practice screaming their heads off. It’s called Midnight Yell Practice, and thousands of Aggies fans participate in the tradition every Friday night before a Saturday game. Yell Practice lasts well into the night.

The work pays off, though, on Saturday afternoons, when the 82,600-capacity Kyle Field becomes one of the most intimidating venues in all of college football—a place that one visiting player once described as “terrorizingly loud.”

On The Grow:

First constructed in 1927 and named in honor of former Texas A&M dean of agriculture Edwin Jackson Kyle, Kyle Field has been expanded several times.

Two new decks of grandstands were added in 1967. Thirteen years later, the massive and imposing third-level decks were built, turning Kyle into a canyon of noise. The stadium grew once more in 1999 with a $32.9 expansion million of the north end zone, which brought the stadium to its current capacity of 82,600.

Today, few, if any, college football stadiums is more physically impressive than Kyle.

A Tough Place To Play:

Before his team visited Kyle Field for a game in 2000, Kansas State safety and Texas native Jarrod Cooper knew his team was in for a challenge.

Said Cooper: "[Aggies fans] are loud. They've got that salute and the big Army thing going. They've closed that horseshoe and it's terrorizingly loud."

Certainly, visiting teams haven’t had much fun playing in Aggieland Since its opening, the Aggies are 251-122-12 at Kyle Field. A&M was especially tough to beat in the 1990s, when coach R.C. Slocum led his Aggie teams to a remarkable home record of 55-4-1, including winning streaks of 31 (between 1990-1995) and 22 (1996-2000).

Biggest Crowds? Against Texas, Of Course:

The largest crowd in Kyle history was 88,253, for a game against the hated Texas Longhorns in 2007. In fact, three of the five largest crowds in Kyle history came against Texas.

Those crowds could grow even larger in years to come. Texas A&M officials are currently considering yet another expansion to Kyle.

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