Mazeppa
8/4/2012, 10:29 PM
Notre Dame football: FieldTurf coming to Notre Dame Stadium
By ERIC HANSEN - Follow me @hansensouthbend
10:22 p.m. EDT, August 2, 2012
SOUTH BEND — FieldTurf in Notre Dame Stadium is apparently no longer a question of if, but rather when.
Irish head football coach Brian Kelly’s preseason primer at noon Friday precedes the team’s first practice of fall training camp by 22 hours and figures to finally put some closure to some of the Notre Dame football team’s long-percolating offseason mysteries.
But Thursday night on WSBT’s Weekday SportsBeat, Kelly shed some light on a few of those issues, not the least of which was the FieldTurf question. Notre Dame Stadium has featured a natural grass surface since the facility opened in 1930.
“Field Turf is coming,” Kelly said. “It’s something that’s eventually going to be in the stadium. We had a lot of construction in there this year, which kind of put us back a little bit, but that’s coming.”
He later added that it could be as early as the 2013 football season.
The school did install artificial turf this offseason on the sidelines and in the corners of the back of the end zone.
“We’ve had so many incidents of guys going out of bounds and stepping on the concrete and slipping,” Kelly noted.
The Irish practice on FieldTurf, but will play 11 of their 12 games this season on natural grass.
Kelly would like to hold more practices, though, in the stadium — not just at the LaBar Practice Complex. But the fragile state of the field virtually eliminates that. Kelly’s thinking is, when you never get in the stadium for practice, it becomes “almost like the Basilica to the players” and erodes home-field advantage because of the awe factor.
Speaking of which, in a recent study published at predictionmachine.com, all 120 teams that played in the FBS last season were rated on their home-field advantage. The data takes into account games all the way back to 2000.
Notre Dame ended up 105th out of 120. Navy, ND’s opening opponent was dead last. The two teams meet on neutral ground Sept. 1 in Dublin, Ireland. Oklahoma, where the Irish play Oct. 27, was rated as being the toughest place to play.
“I think Jack Swarbrick, our athletic director, his vision has a lot more things in store for our stadium,” Kelly said of enhancing ND’s home-field advantage. “So it should be exciting.”
By ERIC HANSEN - Follow me @hansensouthbend
10:22 p.m. EDT, August 2, 2012
SOUTH BEND — FieldTurf in Notre Dame Stadium is apparently no longer a question of if, but rather when.
Irish head football coach Brian Kelly’s preseason primer at noon Friday precedes the team’s first practice of fall training camp by 22 hours and figures to finally put some closure to some of the Notre Dame football team’s long-percolating offseason mysteries.
But Thursday night on WSBT’s Weekday SportsBeat, Kelly shed some light on a few of those issues, not the least of which was the FieldTurf question. Notre Dame Stadium has featured a natural grass surface since the facility opened in 1930.
“Field Turf is coming,” Kelly said. “It’s something that’s eventually going to be in the stadium. We had a lot of construction in there this year, which kind of put us back a little bit, but that’s coming.”
He later added that it could be as early as the 2013 football season.
The school did install artificial turf this offseason on the sidelines and in the corners of the back of the end zone.
“We’ve had so many incidents of guys going out of bounds and stepping on the concrete and slipping,” Kelly noted.
The Irish practice on FieldTurf, but will play 11 of their 12 games this season on natural grass.
Kelly would like to hold more practices, though, in the stadium — not just at the LaBar Practice Complex. But the fragile state of the field virtually eliminates that. Kelly’s thinking is, when you never get in the stadium for practice, it becomes “almost like the Basilica to the players” and erodes home-field advantage because of the awe factor.
Speaking of which, in a recent study published at predictionmachine.com, all 120 teams that played in the FBS last season were rated on their home-field advantage. The data takes into account games all the way back to 2000.
Notre Dame ended up 105th out of 120. Navy, ND’s opening opponent was dead last. The two teams meet on neutral ground Sept. 1 in Dublin, Ireland. Oklahoma, where the Irish play Oct. 27, was rated as being the toughest place to play.
“I think Jack Swarbrick, our athletic director, his vision has a lot more things in store for our stadium,” Kelly said of enhancing ND’s home-field advantage. “So it should be exciting.”