I didn't think a football field could have mange...

[Hoosker Du]

but Northwestern's field proved me wrong. Did they not pay their utility bill or something?

There's no excuse for a field being in that kind of shape. Especially this early in the season.

 

[barney44]

I said the field looked like crap in the game thread last night, It looked patchy as hell and poorly maintained.

 

[HuskAir]

It looked worse than a junior high football field in the middle of the Atacama Desert.

 

[TwinsRRUs]

I didn't catch every word of it, but the announcers said something at the start of the game along the lines of:

"The groundskeeper has been gone (sick) for 2 years and just returned. With the amout of money spent on this program, how can they not have had someone take over those duties while he was out?"

Who knows when he "just returned" (before the season or like a week ago)?

 

[redwine65]

it looked like someone scraped the top with a skid loader with teeth. and I think missou had a hill behind a end zone, but I don't remember our players starting to run up hill 2 yards out of bounds.

 

[TheNewNU]

If their groundskeeper was ill, maybe it's time to consider some artificial turf. The artificial stuff runs at $1 million tops we all know they have the $. Hell, I'm sure the B1G would pay for it at this point. That field was embarrassingly bad last night.

 

[redfanusa]

You could get on Craigslist and find a crew willing to keep the lawn in decent shape. Maybe the brainiacs at NW haven't heard of such high-tech gadgets yet.

 

[jedihusker]

If their groundskeeper was ill, maybe it's time to consider some artificial turf. The artificial stuff runs at $1 million tops we all know they have the $. Hell, I'm sure the B1G would pay for it at this point. That field was embarrassingly bad last night.

I think because of the northern location of B1G schools, all fields should use artificial turf. Just through some quick research, I discovered that 10 of the 14 B1G teams use the same FieldTurf surface. Only Northwestern, Purdue, Michigan State and Penn State still use grass. In the past, I understand the dislike some had for artificial surfaces, like AstroTurf, but the surfaces like FieldTurf that are used these days are so much better, just seems like it would make more sense, so you don't run into issues like Northwestern's field.

 

[Bill_Callahan2.0]

This wouldn't be a problem if they hired a professional turf manager. People go to school (I did) for sports turf management. There's an incredible amount of time and work that goes into making a field maintained for major cfb play.

But they absolutely need to switch to artificial if they aren't going to take it seriously. Safety is the #1 rule of sports turf, and that field isn't safe.

 

[BigBL87]

As bad as it looked on TV, it looked worse in person. The really bad part is they had patched the sod right at the 40 yard line, so there was like a 10'x6' spot by the 40 that looked fine and made the rest of it look even worse.

 

[Husker.Wed.]

This wouldn't be a problem if they hired a professional turf manager. People go to school (I did) for sports turf management. .

So did Carl Spackler who worked at Bushwood. Actually, he was still going to school back in 1980, but he had already developed his own variety of grass.

 

[BigBL87]

So did Carl Spackler who worked at Bushwood. Actually, he was still going to school back in 1980, but he had already developed his own variety of grass.

IIRC, you could play 36 holes on it then go home and get stoned to the begeezus belt on the stuff, right?

 

[Hoosker Du]

"Here, take a puff on this big ole Bob Marley joint."

 

[meo1960]

but Northwestern's field proved me wrong. Did they not pay their utility bill or something?

There's no excuse for a field being in that kind of shape. Especially this early in the season.

If their field was in pristine shape like most schools, they might lose one of the few competitive advantages they have. And besides, I've heard, Northwestern desperately wants to revive an old classic chant which goes something like, "Our band is better than your band".

I did notice a couple of our guys slipping a bit.

 

[donahues17]

Even the lighting was something from a high school stadium. That was bad to see at a FBS school. How embarassing for the B1G.

 

[meo1960]

Even the lighting was something from a high school stadium. That was bad to see at a FBS school. How embarassing for the B1G.

iirc, they rent their lighting for night games. Something like these-Stadium Light Towers

 

[LovNit]

Someone from another thread stated that the area suffered from a terrible bout of pithium. I saw a few pix of people tailagating in what looks to be someone's yard and it looked the same. One excuse. They could have the crew cut out the middle section and rolled in some sod.

 

[BigBL87]

iirc, they rent their lighting for night games. Something like these-Stadium Light Towers

You are correct. Surprised me when I went to Evanston for the first time a few years ago.

 

[redwine65]

I could understand if northwestern was iowa state poor, but don't they get money hand over fist for supposably being a real first rate education?

 

[nudan92]

Pretty sure I saw some prairie dog heads popping up here and there during the game.