MORGANTOWN, W.Va -- Two hours before kickoff Saturday night, Auburn's players will walk down Donahue Drive, a thoroughfare leading to Jordan-Hare Stadium, their home venue.

Some 20,000 well-wishers will line the route.

Minutes before kickoff, an eagle will take off from a ledge high inside Jordan-Hare. The eagle will soar, circle around a bit before it touches down near midfield as the more than 87,000 fans take in the spectacle.

This is the Deep South. This is the Southeastern Conference. This is college football on a Saturday night.

There will be pomp, plenty of it.

How will the West Virginia football team deal with the circumstances?

Perhaps that is the most pervasive question as the Mountaineers (2-0) prepare to head in Auburn (2-0) for a nationally televised, non-conference, early season blockbuster.

"We are not going there to sightsee, we are going there on a business trip," West Virginia coach Bill Stewart said. "We're going into one of the toughest arenas in this country this Saturday. And I think our guys know that, and they are ready to play. It goes back to confidence and leadership and staying the course."

Jordan-Hare Stadium is a course that has been littered with obstacles for some of college football's biggest names over the past nine seasons. Since 2000, Auburn is 17-3 in home night games at the 10th-largest on-campus facility in the country.

The Tigers have beaten four nationally ranked opponents at home in that stretch: No. 1 Florida (2001), No. 2 Florida (2006), No. 7 Tennessee (2003) and No. 14 Georgia (2000).

Doc Holliday, West Virginia's associate head coach, was on that 2006 Florida staff, and he knows what to expect. The main factor? Noise, and a whole lot of it.

West Virginia will practice for the majority of this week with music and crowd noise pumped through speakers at Mountaineer Field in an effort to simulate the type of racket Auburn's fans will make.

"You just have to prepare and work on it during the week," Holliday said. "If you go in there, and you have total concentration, you shouldn't have any issues with it. We don't plan on having any issues with it."

Not having any issues might be asking a little much. When that many people get together and make noise, it invariably impacts the opposing offense.

Page 94 of the Auburn media guide likes to trumpet the fact that, on game day, Jordan-Hare is the fifth-largest city in Alabama.

Larger than Dothan, larger than Decatur, larger even than Tuscaloosa -- when Alabama does not have a home game at its 92,138-seat stadium, of course.

West Virginia quarterback Jarrett Brown knows all those people could, and most likely will, spell one big problem for communication.

"I really haven't experienced anything like [what we are going to]," Brown said. "We changed some things up to handle their crowd."

Brown also knows the ideal remedy would be going down the first time his team gets the ball and scoring a touchdown. The quarterback also has a name for such a drive that could bring a pall over the crowd.

"I call it a silencer," he said.

In addition to Holliday, West Virginia offensive line coach Dave Johnson has been on a staff that has gone into Jordan-Hare.

Johnson, a Penn Hills graduate who played at West Virginia, was Georgia's tight ends coach from 2001-07.

Johnson was asked if West Virginia has worked on a silent snap count this week.

"Maybe," was all he would offer, followed by a wry smile.

Reading between the lines, that answer served as a definite "yes."

"It is going to be loud, that is an obvious thing," Johnson said. "There are going to be close to 90,000 people, and it is going to be loud, it is going to be hostile."

Johnson then chose to look at things another way, tuning out the disadvantage, just as he hopes his linemen will do to the noise Saturday.

"There will be a lot of Auburn people there, sure," Johnson said. "Yet, I know there is going to be one corner that is going to be all gold and blue. That will be nice to see."

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