(The following is a letter to the editor which was published by the Knoxville News Sentinel)

Turn down the noise at Neyland Stadium. It is ridiculous how loud it is before and during the game. We arrive about an hour before kickoff and the noise (I cannot call it music) is so loud we have to shout in each other’s ear to hear, and we are not old and/or deaf. (But we may be after putting up with decibel-crushing racket for four hours.)

And that “Third down for what” with the bass line turned up as loud as it could be has no business in a ballgame. We have been to every stadium in the Southeastern Conference, and none have such a raucous noise blaster as that.

With at least 90,000 fans in the stadium wearing orange and a 300-member band, the noise level created by them will be perfectly fine to rattle the opposition without breaking the eardrums of those in attendance.

And don’t tell us that’s what the young people want. Since when do the inmates run the asylum?

That is about what it sounded like during the game with the University of Oklahoma: Craziness.

(Maybe it would have sounded better had we won.)

Edward John Boyson, Charlotte, Tenn.