Honestly, after last week, why not turn this into our home e field advantage? I say from now on, even of it is dry all week, we water the **** out of it the night before. "Oops, power went out on the sprinkler timers."
Natural Grass vs Artificial/Field Turf
- Thread starter AttackOfTheClones
- Start date
Update to my initial response: Looks like it's second place.
Record:
127: vs. Simpson (87) and Grinnell (40), 1904.
Third: 117, Cornell and Coe, 1906.
- Jun 20, 2006
- 39,426
- 24,746
- 113
- Jun 20, 2006
- 39,426
- 24,746
- 113
- Jun 20, 2006
- 39,426
- 24,746
- 113
I like the grass field myself. If everyone else is using turf, that gives us an advantage when they play here. There used to be more injuries on turf, but maybe they have adjusted the formulation to fix the problem. With grass, you can also adjust the height and moisture to impact the play. TOE used to leave the grass height high when we played there, because it reportedly slowed the game down. Probably grass costs more to maintain, but ISU has one of the best grass/lawn care programs in the country. Seems like we should be utilizing that technology base .
In the 80's, it was painted asphalt. Those dudes had it rough, looking back it's incredible there weren't even more injuries in that era.
Maintenance costs are negligible according to a few people I've chat with who should know depending on if you're maintaining your field turf correctly. From what I understand a lot of places don't clean it as often as you're supposed to and as deep as you're supposed to.
I personally love our natural grass. Looked awesome on TV yesterday even though it has been a tough year as far as weather goes and agree with others it may be an advantage as many teams don't play on grass any more. I have had friends in the past (many hawk fans) argue with me that our field was fake because natural grass can't look that good.
On a side note, have we always had the giant tarp to cover it like they showed yesterday or is that a more recent thing? Seems like other than on actual game days that should help with keeping the field stable.
They usually use the “grow tarp” when it cools off that they blow hot air into but the tarp yesterday is something they started this year to keep the field dry.
Why are people who are not players, coaches, or grounds crew so passionate about natural grass?
I don't care either way but the field was in pretty good shape today (way better than I expected it).
Turf sidebar: As a race car guy what's the fastest you have driven on turf? Not dirt, turf!
Not sure of the speed but was riding with an idiot friend of mine in HS and he drove onto a rural grass airport runway and dragged it. Not sure the top speed but it was whatever a big old late '60's V-8 would do in 3000 feet. When he slammed on the brakes towards the end of the runway he lost it some (or knowing him, did it on purpose) and did a few 360's. Stupid teens but seemed like a good idea at the time.
Tagging in our CF flyboy @wxman1 so he can be appalled at the runway abuse.
We did something similar on a golf course which ended with my buddy's front bumper a bit inside a golf cart shed. Never would have happened on the fake stuff.Turf sidebar: As a race car guy what's the fastest you have driven on turf? Not dirt, turf!
Not sure of the speed but was riding with an idiot friend of mine in HS and he drove onto a rural grass airport runway and dragged it. Not sure the top speed but it was whatever a big old late '60's V-8 would do in 3000 feet. When he slammed on the brakes towards the end of the runway he lost it some (or knowing him, did it on purpose) and did a few 360's. Stupid teens but seemed like a good idea at the time.
Tagging in our CF flyboy @wxman1 so he can be appalled at the runway abuse.
