Oklahoma football: How do Sooner fans rank on the decibel meter?

There is never an empty seat at Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium for an Oklahoma football game, certainly not at the beginning of games and not in this century.

Sooner fans are passionate about their football team and are among the best traveling collegiate fan bases. They are visible and vocal everywhere Oklahoma plays, but none more so than when the Sooners play at home.

Since the beginning of the 1999 season, Oklahoma has sold out 146 consecutive football games at over 80,000 plus. The “Palace on the Prairie,” as it is known to the Sooner faithful, is the second largest football facility in the Big 12 and among the top-15 largest stadiums at the collegiate level nationally. Seven of the 15 largest college stadiums, incidentally are in the SEC, and if you include Oklahoma and Texas that number jumps to nine of the 15 largest in the country.

Large college football facilities equates to loud college fan environments. How do Sooner fans stack up on the basis of home game noise level currently and when the Sooners transfer their membership to the SEC? And how does that compare to the college stadiums considered the loudest in the country?

According to the folks at Stadium Talk, which likes to rank anything and everything — past, present and future — having to do with the world of sports, OU’s Gaylord Family-Oklahoma Memorial Stadium is No. 17 in a ranking of the loudest college stadiums. That ranks second only to No. 16 Texas among current Big 12 facilities.

Compared with SEC football stadiums, which collectively are the largest in college football, four SEC schools are ranked as louder than Sooner fans and, notably two — No. 18 Auburn, at Jordan-Hare Stadium, and No. 20 Georgia, at Sanford Stadium — rank lower than Oklahoma in Stadium Talk’s top-20 ranking of the loudest college stadiums.

The top five college stadiums, according to Stadium Talk, are No. 1 Washington, No. 2 Tennessee, No. 3 Clemson, No. 4 LSU and No. 5 Oregon.