re: The Terrible...Terrible Towels

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There were towels at the Ole Miss game (purple--I have one), but I think there were less of them-- mostly for the students.

The towels look awesome, IMO. The pom-poms at Alabama don't make them lose. We almost beat Bama while waving towels their past two trips here. It's the 2-minute defense on the field that loses the games lately, not the towels.

We can only do so much. The team has to give us reason to cheer, too.

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The atmosphere at Tiger Stadium is defined by the noise factor. Anything that detracts from that is a bad idea. Towels are an example of this.

I agree with the OP.

These are all good points so far, and I guess its difficult to judge which game was louder between ole miss/bama, I just recall there being a few crucial moments where the stadium needed to get loud, which it was, but that I was able to hear people talking next to me unlike some of the louder games in the past. To reiterate though, I don't believe the towels/pom poms/cowbells/whatever directly cause anyone to win or lose. But I do think that clapping+yelling is undoubtedly louder than towel twirling+yelling, and anything that can be done to make Death Valley as hostile an environment as possible (within realistic bounds) should be considered. It might look really cool on TV, be fun to be like the Steelers, and apparently may even cause a select few to yell louder as mentioned above. But I think as a whole (at least in the student section), the towels do more harm than good other than possibly distracting the field goal kickers.

Do any of the older fans remember towels being placed in the stadium other than the last decade or so? Or is this a new "big game" tradition?