EDITOR’S NOTE: We’ve seen countless stadium rankings with Tiger Stadium at the top (after all, it’s great). To provide a different account, Marky Billson, SDS contributor, discusses his own personal SEC stadium rankings with some unique and personal criteria.

The best football stadium in the Southeastern Conference is Williams-Brice Stadium in Columbia, S.C., a.k.a. “Home of the Gamecocks.”

I make this claim not by any scientific formula but because of family. Back in 1971, my grandfather, unhappy at his current engineering firm, set out to Columbia to meet an old business associate. Upon arriving at the office, he was told the person he wished to meet was at Carolina Stadium putting on the new ooeck but would be happy to see him there.

The next thing Duane Hull knew, Cecil Wilhoit was hiring him to be the chief engineer of Wilhoit Steel Erectors, completing not only the upper deck of the soon-to-be-renamed Williams-Brice Stadium, but building countless structures around the Southeast for the next decade.

In a roundabout way, it’s the stadium that ultimately brought me to the Southeast, which in turn allowed me to ultimately write about the SEC for Saturday Down South and this very piece.

So you’ll forgive me if I can’t choose any other yard but Williams-Brice to be the best in the SEC. Biased as I may be, I really can’t go against my grandfather, who will celebrate his 96th birthday later this month and 75th anniversary this fall.

Football stadiums generally aren’t viewed in the same way baseball parks or golf courses are. The field is always going to be of uniform dimensions, and in so many cases they are as indistinguishable as the multi-purpose stadiums built in the 1960s and ’70s.

Williams-Brice is not an exception. It’s a chore to go to the second level, and heaven help you if you miss the exit for I-77 leaving the game. The boiled peanuts are cold. The team figures to be lousy, and I’m sure opponents see the sign in the end zone commemorating the Gamecocks’ 1969 ACC Championship and think, “One conference title, and it’s not even in the SEC? How cute!”

Heck, there’s a chicken restaurant across the street from Williams-Brice Stadium. I can kind of see a Florida fan taking an alligator bag to Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, but I always thought having a Bojangles on the other side of Bluff Road was counterproductive to the Gamecocks at best and disturbing at worst.

But, on the other hand, there’s The Cockaboose.

Ole Miss has “The Grove,” which is made up of tents. Cars on The Cockaboose cost as much as a ritzy home.

There’s the famous entrance to “Also sprach Zarathustra” (the theme to 2001: A Space Odyssey), not to mention:

“Another Carolina … FIRST DOWN!”

“Carolina Girls – Best in the World.”

“Hey, let’s give a cheer! Carolina is here!”

“GAME! Cawwwwks! GAME! Cawwwks!”

Speaking of mascots, Cocky is to college football what the Phillies Phanatic is to Major League Baseball.

A wildcat roaring or a dog howling over the public address system after the home team scores a touchdown is rather commonplace in college football. Instead, Williams-Brice Stadium has a refreshingly unique rooster crow.

To think a rooster crow could be intimidating almost seems comical. But it works! Damnit, THE ROOSTER CROW WORKS! To the point where the SEC once came down on the Gamecocks for playing it too much.

I live for the day when an opposing coach, after being thoroughly routed at Williams-Brice Stadium, begins his post-game press conference by uttering, in total exasperation and horror from the sound effect he has been subjected to for the previous three and a half hours: “The crowing! The infernal CROWING!”

Among the many sponsors a fan will see on the Williams-Brice scoreboard is one for Cromer’s P-Nuts, “Guaranteed Worst in Town.”

Go ahead, name another football stadium that has a sense of humor.

1125 George Rogers Boulevard. That’s where you’ll find the best stadium in the SEC.

Of course, the stadium a fan thinks is the best is going to be the one his team plays in. If one spends three hours outside in a Wisconsin winter, most people are going to have serious concerns about their health, let alone comfort.

But to a Green Bay Packers fan, you’ve just described a romantic experience at Lambeau Field, and you’ll never convince them any other stadium can compare.

Change the venue to Buffalo, N.Y., and we can just hear Marv Levy ask the Bills, “Where would you rather be than right here, right now?”

So if you don’t agree Williams-Brice is the best in the SEC, just put your favorite team’s yard at the top. It’s a subjective argument anyway.

But if you want to know what stadiums have the best reputations in the SEC, read on.

2. Tiger Stadium

When one thinks of the great environments of college football, there are those who will choose Notre Dame, Michigan or perhaps the Army-Navy game.

But kickoff after the sun goes down, and one environment stands out among all others; Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge.

Louisiana State football night games in Baton Rouge date back to 1931, or four years prior to night games in Major League Baseball. Played at this time to combat the heat and humidity of the region as well as to give blue collar fans a chance to come to the game from their farms or rigs.

What developed was a culture of celebration rivaling anything New Orleans could offer. The energy and volume of Tiger Stadium once literally registered on the Richter Scale.

No state is more known for its cuisine than Louisiana, so who could possibly have better tailgates?

The Big Easy may have Mardi Gras, but the stuffy, devout state capital has the most exciting Saturday nights in the Pelican State throughout the fall.

While college football allegiances mainly lie within state borders, playing at night also gave the Tigers national exposure they otherwise wouldn’t have had in a previous generation. New Orleans radio station WWL, with its 50,000 watt signal, could be heard on Saturday night throughout most of America, allowing a nation to follow the exploits of the Chinese Bandits or Billy Cannon the way they might tune in to KMOX to follow the St. Louis Cardinals.

Lots of college football teams are nicknamed the Tigers. Some of them, LSU included, use the jazz staple “Tiger Rag” as a fight song.

Who else uses the “Eye of the Tiger” as the logo on the 50-yard line? Who else has the unique color scheme of gold and purple? Who else puts a number marker every five yards? Who else spells “go” with an x?

In 1986, the LSU football team actually lived at Tiger Stadium while dormitories were being refurbished.

They went to the Sugar Bowl.

In a state known for black magic, that’s magical enough for us.

3. Vaught-Hemingway Stadium

It’s a safe bet to assume not a whole lot of SEC football fans follow the exploits of the Sioux Falls Canaries, an independent minor league baseball team in the American Association.

But if any of them do, they might be interested in the story of pitcher Shawn Blackwell, a one-time Ole Miss baseball recruit.

The Rebels sent him to a football game at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium as part of his recruiting, and he had the opportunity to tour The Grove.

It was enough to convince Blackwell NOT to attend the University of Mississippi, but not for reasons you might think.

“I don’t see myself getting better here,” he said, while theorizing how much time he’d spend training and how much time he’d be celebrating at The Grove.

It’s simply irresistible. Ask the standard American sports fan what tailgating is, and he’ll probably give you a vision of parkas, hot dogs, potato chips and beer.

On The Grove, they have $71,000 portable toilets.

Nothing else would do. The setting is pastoral, with magnolias, elms and oaks surrounding a tent city that springs up the night before the game and is often more populated than most Mississippi metropolises. It is a trip into the Old South, where the residents wear formal wear and eat their Hors d’oeuvres with expensive silver off fancy table settings.

“No wonder they beat us,” said the late Lewis Grizzard after watching the Rebels defeat Georgia 17-13 at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in 1989. “They still wave the flag, still sing “Dixie,” and they can still pray, and they can bring liquor into the game.”

The stadium itself might not be the most memorable structure, but it is named after Johnny Vaught, bringing back memories of the era in which Ole Miss made bowl games in 17 of 18 seasons from 1954-71. During that era, the yard was named solely for William Hemingway, a judge and Ole Miss law professor who chaired the school’s athletics committee, and it had a seating capacity of fewer than 35,000. Many of the big games of the era were played in Jackson or Memphis. Vaught-Hemingway didn’t even have lights until 1990, or two years after Wrigley Field did.

That was then. The stadium has been expanded this season to seat more than 64,000 fans and will have natural grass for the first time in 14 years.

Or, as one of Grizzard’s friends observed at that game a quarter century ago, “I saw fraternity boys in coats and ties with their dates, who were in heels.”

4. Kyle Field

Speaking of stadium expansion, it might shock some that Neyland Stadium is no longer the SEC stadium with the largest seating capacity. That honor now belongs to Kyle Field, home of Texas A&M, which is only right and proper.

After all, isn’t everything bigger in Texas?

Fans come at midnight on game day just to yell, part of an environment that will get the upper deck to sway.

Behold the stadium that MOVES!

It used to be that the most famous sign in college football was at the old Orange Bowl in Miami, with its friendly “The City of Miami Welcomes You to the Orange Bowl” between the upper and lower deck opposite the press box.

Today, that honor would have to go to Kyle Field’s “Home of the 12th Man” sign, which commemorates not only the walk-ons on the kickoff team but a fan base known to fill the stadium to the point that not all of them have a place to sit down.

“Farmers Fight!”

“Hullabaloo, Caneck! Caneck!”

The Fightin’ Texas Aggie Band is the most disciplined in all of college football.

There’s the old complaint that A&M doesn’t really have cheerleaders, rather five guys who serve as something called “Yell Leaders,” a tradition that stems back more than a century to when the school was all male. Governor Rick Perry was, in 1971, a “Yell Leader.”

But when tradition demands you kiss your date after every Aggies score, who really needs the visual aids, anyway?

5. Neyland Stadium

Go to any sporting event, anywhere, and you will see:

Fans wearing the home team’s memorabilia.

Fans wearing the visiting team’s memorabilia.

A few lost souls who will wear their team’s memorabilia. This is the annoying fan attending with friends who decides he’s got to “represent” his alma mater that isn’t playing in the game, or the teen who’s adopted the out-of-town team currently on top of the standings as his own.

Every place except Neyland Stadium, where orange clothes are more prevalent than they are on chain gangs.

Go ahead. Find those misplaced fans in Knoxville.

Oh, sure there will be fans of the other team. With the invention of online aftermarket ticket sales, they are a bit more prevalent throughout the stadium than just the visitors section on the 5-yard line.

But you will not find any transplant to east Tennessee wearing, say, Ohio State gear to Neyland Stadium unless the Buckeyes are the visitors.

Or even, surprisingly, a sweatshirt from a smaller neighboring school like Chattanooga, Carson-Newman or Knoxville College. You won’t even find Bearden or Karns High School represented.

I once thought I saw such a fan. Once. Several years ago.

Somewhere, 40 yards away from where the SID had sat me for the game I was covering, a shirt of blue and white stood out like a sore thumb among the 100,000 orange clad fans.

Had a Duke fan snuck into the hallowed shrine of Vols football?

My mind no longer focused on whoever the Vols were blowing out that day. The spectacle of a shirt belonging to a team not participating in the day’s event was much more unusual and memorable than what the game had become.

After several minutes of focusing my field glasses, I finally was able to clearly make out the human being I believed had to be the most independent individual I had ever cast my eyes upon.

And that’s when I realized he wasn’t wearing a Duke Blue Devils shirt. He was wearing an Indianapolis Colts shirt, thus representing Peyton Manning.

That doesn’t count.

6. Sanford Stadium

Earlier, it was mentioned most football stadiums have a uniform nature. But you could awake from a coma in Sanford Stadium with all the signage removed and still know where you are.

The reason is because of the hedges, part of the scenery that makes the stadium special.

It’s almost as if Athens refuses to be outdone by Augusta National.

UGA mascots are given a burial at the stadium worthy of a veteran’s cemetery. A statue commemorates Vince Dooley being carried off the field. After every Bulldogs first down “Glory! Glory!” resonates in your ears to the point you’re asking why the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” isn’t the national anthem at the water cooler or school yard on Monday.

“Sick ’em Dawgs!”

Sanford Stadium makes the first division of any cut of SEC stadiums you wish to slice.

7. Davis Wade Stadium

While renovations and victories have pushed Mississippi State’s home to more than 62,000, it’s not modern additions that put the Bulldogs’ stadium into the upper tier of SEC yards.

It’s the cowbells, plain and simple.

Cheerleaders may have pom poms and the Pittsburgh Steelers may have the Terrible Towel, but they don’t make noise the way the cowbells do.

It isn’t a band playing a fight song, nor is it an organist at a baseball or hockey game imploring the crowd to cheer or clap their hands.

It’s natural, unadulterated fan support and love for a team that has often, though not always, disappointed.

And it may be the most distinctive emblem of fan support in all of college football.

8. Jordan-Hare Stadium

Auburn’s athletic facilities, including their home football stadium, rank with the best in all of college athletics. But is there anything significantly unique about this venue?

Well, yes. There’s the catchiest fight song in all of college football, “War Eagle,” which anyone who follows college football knows is also the Tigers’ cheer (but not nickname, as Lindsey Nelson was always so apt to point out). The cheer is so popular it has resonated within the language of the Los Angeles-based Jim Rome Show and its urban shtick, hardly the culture of The Plains.

How could Romey resist? I mean, where else do games begin with the release of an eagle?

9. Memorial Stadium

Frankly, a team that comes into the conference and wins back-to-back division titles as quickly as Mizzou did should have more respect. Polls often rank the University of Missouri as one of the most popular college football programs around. After all, they are the only FBS team in a rather large state.

But what makes this venue great is the press box. With arguably the top journalism school in the country, the Memorial Stadium press box figures to be filled with the scribes of the future.

The game on the field will influence who goes to Atlanta in December, but this stadium’s press box will influence football’s culture for generations.

10. Vanderbilt Stadium

Say what you will, but Vanderbilt Stadium may be the most unique stadium in all of the SEC.

At less than 42,000 seats, it’s the smallest, which means it is the most intimate. Even if Vanderbilt students must adhere to an honor code, they still get the idea that a well-shouted zinger at the other team could be heard.

Where else are you going to get that?

It’s also in Nashville, which means there’s something for everyone to do and enjoy before and after the game. It’s simply the best urban atmosphere in the conference.

On days when the Commodores are playing the likes of Massachusetts and only 16,000 fans show up, there’s the opportunity to spread out and really concentrate on the action, to be able to get comfortable, to be able to go to the concession stand or the restroom and not worry about missing half the game.

But the foghorn and Vanderbilt’s “Dynamite” prevents the atmosphere from getting too pastoral.

For years, Vanderbilt Stadium was the home to the Clinic Bowl, the name once given to Tennessee high school football state championship games. That meant every high school football player in Tennessee dreamed of playing at Vanderbilt Stadium, something no other venue could truthfully say.

11. Ben Hill Griffin Stadium

“The Swamp” provides a terrific atmosphere with the “chomp” — the perfect anecdote to Florida State’s tomahawk chop — as well as the “Go Gators” chant. You know the weather is going to be warm and the campus is going to be beautiful. The sight lines are great even from the top row of the yard, the fans tend to be friendly and the school’s alma mater with the line “Where the girls are the fairest, the boys are the squarest” is downright lovable.

All in all, a wonderful venue that ranks among the best in college football. The only reason it isn’t ranked higher is it always seems to be raining there.

12. Bryant-Denny Stadium

The problem with Bryant-Denny Stadium is much of the era played under the coach the venue is half-named after was played at Legion Field, not in Tuscaloosa.

But the home venue of the top college football program in America is going to be a magical place by any judgment.

There’s pageantry when the cheerleaders run out carrying that huge flag with the “A” or the fight song with references about beating Georgia Tech (GEORGIA TECH!) and going to the Rose Bowl (THE ROSE BOWL!), but when push comes to shove, the Crimson Tide’s venue lacks the unique characteristics that its rivals have, be it with checkerboard end zones or “War Eagle!” chants.

But maybe that’s why Alabama is always so good. They’re not worried about the fact “Yea, Alabama” is antiquated or their helmets have no logos or their mascot seems to stem from an old Groucho Marx joke about removing tusks from elephants.

They’re concerned with winning, and that’s what makes the support Alabama gets at Bryant-Denny, and in turn the environment, great.

13. Razorback Stadium

“Woo Pig Sooie!” It’s the cheer that makes this venue fantastic.

The most memorable game in the stadium’s history was probably when President Richard Nixon attended Arkansas’ 1969 game against Texas. At the time, it was a matchup of the top two ranked teams in college football, and the winner would go on to the Cotton Bowl and the national championship despite the objections of third-ranked Penn State.

There’s “Pig Sooie,” a stadium expansion that seats 72,000, college football’s answer to the Cheesehead with that plastic pig hat as well as a brand-new scoreboard.

Otherwise, Razorback Stadium is still a venue that Arkansas can’t commit a full schedule to.

14. Commonwealth Stadium

Start emphasizing real sports, Kentucky, and we’ll put your venue higher. As it is, Boise State’s turf is the color of what your stadium’s grass SHOULD look like.