Virginia Tech and Notre Dame were extremely loud and rowdy. That did feel like the old days. My ears were ringing. The loudspeaker played a role since it was turned up to the extreme, creating artificial noise. Everything in this stadium is kind of contrived, while the Orange Bowl held everything on its own.
Regardless, much more difficult to transplant to the NFL. Those Canes games last season were at night. Plus the younger fans are more active and stay in their seats. With daytime Dolphin games no matter the announced attendance you can see empty blocks of seats all over the place, with fans watching in lounges, etc.
Obviously many tickets belong to fans of the opposing team. And the 12 minute halftime is a disaster. That effectively removes 1/8 of the game from home field impact. The fans simply aren't in their seats during that first half of the third quarter. Many Hispanic fans have a tendency to show up late or tailgate longer in the parking lot so those 1 pm kickoffs aren't exactly full blast at kickoff either.
I may take some grief for that generality but I'll stand by it. After all, I have 50+ years of comparison shopping in this city. But at least it is not as bad as Canes games kicking off at noon. Those are the ones that always accounted for those near-empty mocking photos taken at kickoff.
Dolphins can have a terrific home field advantage if the team becomes dominant again and the games are considered the place to be...with several of them contested at night.