If Gene Hackman were the coach, and tape measures were 100 yards long, an opposing team might give Cowboys Stadium the "Hoosiers" test when arriving at the new venue.
They are assured the field is regulation size. All its dimensions are the same as those the players have become accustomed to since their pee-wee days. To say that a game at the Cowboys' new stadium and a six-man contest in West Texas has anything in common, though, is a lie.
A flat-out, bold-faced lie.
Forget the architecture, the sheer size of the place, the field-level luxury suites and all the structural notes for a moment, because a lot of stadiums have some semblance of all those things. Cowboys Stadium has its own go-go brigade, the Dallas Cowboys Rhythm & Blue Dancers. It's got the world's largest TV screen. It's just different.
So does that help the Cowboys, who through their first four games there, including the two preseason contests, are 2-2? It's hard to tell so far because of the small sample size, but the players say there could be a decided homefield advantage.
"The whole ambiance of it-it's really big," linebacker Bobby Carpenter says. "When a team comes in you don't want to say they're in awe, but there's a lot going on, and I think that probably does play into our hands a little."
While Wade Phillips was quick to note that the field itself is the same, he did admit that there might be some psychological effect for a visiting team heading into the stadium. Playing in such a palace has to have some pull on the emotions, and as the coach says, football is an emotional game.
"I think the stadium is so good, so different, so exciting, the team coming in can be awed by it a little bit," Phillips says. "'Wow, look at all this, and that, and the video board and all those things.' It could help some, but you've got to do it on the field. And your crowd helps you a lot."
While Texas Stadium had previously earned the rap of a dead building, a place where fans offered a lightly enthusiastic tennis clap at a good play (maybe because they were so commonplace over the years), the new park has seemed to raise the excitement level of its patrons so far. The Cowboys' defense, in particular, has sensed the potential power of the building and spent more time inciting the fans pre-snap, trying to make it tougher on opposing offenses to call their audibles.
Of course, when so many people are in one place, it's hard not to be loud. The Cowboys announced tickets distributed for the Sunday night home opener against New York at 105,121, a record for an NFL game in the United States. Fans spilled over to the outdoor plaza areas just happy to be a part of the occasion, the spectacle was so large. The next week, in a Monday-nighter against the Panthers, there were nearly 15,000 fewer fans, but their voices seemed to echo more loudly with the stadium's retractable elements closed.
The Cowboys plan to keep the roof and end zone doors shut for most games.
"Once they closed the stadium up it got a lot louder," Carpenter says. "Our fans are pretty passionate, so hopefully we can give them a reason to cheer and a reason to get loud. It's affecting their offense and helped out our defense some, and I think the Jumbotron, obviously with all the publicity it's gotten, might have some effect on the special teams."
Carpenter says all the players watch the center-hung video board because its vivid picture makes for a better view of the game, and replays come through in crystal-clear high definition. But, the controversy over the board reached a fever pitch in the preseason when Tennessee's A.J. Trapasso struck the bottom of the screen on a punt. So far, none of the ensuing kicks have even come close.
Cowboys' punter Mat McBriar, who has answered more questions about the video board than any other subject in his Pro Bowl career, hasn't hit it yet. "It's a little bit hyped," he says in a whisper. "A little.
"Everybody that's come in doesn't seem to think of it as an issue," McBriar says of his fellow punters. "But we've only played a handful of games there. Coming up we've got some guys that kick really high and kick right down the middle of the field, and it could play a role. But as of right now, for the guys we've played, it hasn't been an issue."
The Cowboys do believe the board can pose a problem for punt returners when they look up to field the ball. Phillips says the team may send newly-signed return man Allen Rossum to Arlington this week to get used to following punts as they track across the screen.
There are other visual nuances that may give the Cowboys an advantage, they believe, as they become more accustomed to the place. Just as a batter might be distracted by signage along the outfield fence and not pick up the ball cleanly as it comes out of the pitcher's hand, some elements of the giant stadium might do the same for wide receivers.
"What's interesting is the type of glass in the end zones," Carpenter says. "The way the light comes through early in the day it can make it kind of tough to see the ball when you first get in there. I think that's something teams will have to adjust to as they come in."
Sunday's game will mark the first noon contest in the stadium and the first chance to see what effect shadows will play. The pall cast by Texas Stadium's open roof was famous for the difficulties it gave pass-catchers, who would occasionally have trouble judging balls flying from sunlight to shadow and vice-versa.
Most Cowboys seem to believe the biggest homefield advantage will come from the psychological effects of playing on the game's biggest stage.
"It's totally different," tight end Martellus Bennett says. "It's not like playing outside or anything like that. There's a wow factor for guys who haven't seen it."
The Cowboys do realize they'll have to win the games themselves, and their home won't beat any teams on its own-it might even elicit the best effort a visiting team can give. As Bennett put it, grass is grass.
Even when it's the synthetic kind.
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Josh Ellis - 
