Just want some overall thoughts from some experts and people who aren't experts but still act like know-it-alls.

If you were the Kyle Field "superintendent", would you have been comfortable pursuing the timeline that we did?

How do you think the field would've held up if we hadn't gotten the downpour on Friday night?

How would you feel about our prospects for the Ole Miss game?


No shortage of idiots chiming in on the zoo and the premium board figured this would be the best place for real info.

I'd also be interested if anyone posts here that has actual knowledge. I took some pics on 8/12 and the turf looked pretty good. You could see a few seams but it appeared to be over any initial shock(gaining color, no burn around edges of individual pieces, etc.).

My ever so slightly educated opinion is that the heavy rain the day before caused a one time issue. I assume they were running just on the moist side of things to start with and several inches of rain just put it over the edge.

I'm guessing that the sod and, more importantly, the drain system and subsurface is the permanent installation. And, if so, one would assume that it is state of the art. I would bet that this turf was already rooting well and this setback won't occur again.

Finally, this is not unprecedented. It occurs quite often in NFL stadiums up North late in the season. They try to replace between the hashes for safety and aesthetics. The good news here is that we still have several weeks of growing weather, especially for roots.

I expected some problems with the field, but nothing like what happened Saturday night. The ground should not heave that much. I know it was a lot of rain, but those fields are supposed to be built to drain fast. I think the construction process of the field may have moved too fast and some things might have been skipped. Some of it may have been intentional if the field would have to be torn up again next year.

quote:

---

My ever so slightly educated opinion is that the heavy rain the day before caused a one time issue. I assume they were running just on the moist side of things to start with and several inches of rain just put it over the edge.

---

we had similar issues with the field against Lamar, so it wasnt the heavy rain on Friday.

In my uneducated opinion, they didnt listen when our award winning field crew said the grass needs to be in by X date. (Dont know what X date is, but guarantee its well before we actually started laying the sod)

Guess I fall into the know-it-alls, haha. I did work for soil and crop sciences and out at the Turfgrass field lab for over a year so here is my slightly educated opinion.

quote:

---

If you were the Kyle Field "superintendent", would you have been comfortable pursuing the timeline that we did?

---

Not very, even the fastest growing grasses take a long time to establish themselves and really get rooted in well where they can take a beating like that. But I imagine there wasn't a huge amount of consideration given to that, they were probably more worried about construction progress than how the grass would look.

quote:

---

How do you think the field would've held up if we hadn't gotten the downpour on Friday night?

---

Certainly better but we still would have had problems IMO. Games back to back weeks didn't help. It just needs time

quote:

---

How would you feel about our prospects for the Ole Miss game?

---

The field won't make an immaculate recovery and look like it's been there for over a year, the turf guys are good but they don't work miracles. I still would expect it to look much better, I would hope we don't see guys running out with sand and tamps every couple of plays, hopefully not at all. 3 weeks off should help it a lot

I was thinking the large amount of rain would be a plus in the long run as it will help to further float (settle) the sand underneath. Any superintendent would have wanted more time, but I'm sure the construction schedule wouldn't allow a more convenient planting date. The only thing the field needs is time to develop a more massive root system and thank goodness they have some now to play with. Those guys that run that field know what they are doing, and I'm confident they are doing everything they can.

I was on the field for the Lamar game and talked to some of the field crew guys about how things were going. They were all concerned, as it was too quick to have a game and they knew they didn't have an adequate root system. I was also thinking that the rain would help the cause and am still wondering if things didn't actually get too dry on gameday. Wet sand in much more firm than dry sand and being that sand based sod was laid on top of 12" of sand, I can assure you it was not too wet. I know they are happy for the 3 week layoff and am sure the field will be in great shape for the next home game.