College football: Week 2 running thread

Well played. To mark the start of the season, there will be the ceremonial releasing of the canaries.

 

Ok, so I'll bite, why is the field illegal?

 

Yeah I'm wondering too. I'm going to guess it's because the whole 10-yard area around the 50 is the same color, where you're supposed to alternate in 5-yard blocks if you do that. But a total guess.

 

By the way, still not sure what's "illegal" about Central Arkansas' turf. Looks legal to me, just in poor taste.

I was beat to this question, making this post pointless. To make it worthwhile for readers, I bring back AJ McCarron's girlfriend:



That beats pictures of red turfs.

 

Yeah, I'm not seeing what's illegal about that turf, either. Yesterday, I saw a pic of a high school field with black turf. It probably looks like the game is being played on a parking lot with lines painted on it.

I want to have a field that's sort of tan with some random brown splotches. Then I'll tell people that the astroturf died prematurely this year but we hope to have it nice and green again next season.

How about some junior college action? Garden City at Hutchinson, battle of ranked teams (No. 12 vs. No. 13) in Kansas on Hutch's Fieldturf, which is, shockingly, green.

In a couple of years, six of the eight fields in the Kansas juco conference will have Fieldturf. That'll leave Highland, which doesn't need it, and Fort Scott, which can't afford it, as the only ones with real grass.

 

I've found that, at lower levels, artificial turfs are becoming more prevalent as the venues seek revenue-generating events outside of the home team's games. Do that on grass, you tear up the field. On turf, you can play high school games on Thursday and Friday, a college game on Saturday and have a fun fair for kids on Sunday (or whatever). Then you can turn around and host kids' rec-league games Monday and Tuesday if you want/can.

They also serve as a practice alternative for teams with no indoor facility. If it rains all morning and you have afternoon practice, you can still have a normal practice in the stadium without having a slippery, dangerous surface that will be damaged from the practice work and, hence, become more dangerous even in dry conditions.

A local high school near me that's land-locked in a commercial area put turf in its stadium, then turned its practice field into a baseball field. Now it just practices in the stadium every day, not worried about the traffic on the turf.

 

The switch to more high school games on Fieldturf goes hand-in-glove with more prep teams running pass-happy spread offenses, too.

And the copy desker and former offensive lineman in me wants to holler at these high school coaches, "Whatever happened to the wing-T?"

Now get off my Fieldturf lawn!

 

And if you're the coach, you don't have to spend your Thursday evening/Friday morning painting the field and cutting the grass (or paying someone to do it).

 

Fieldturf is fine. Just keep it green, for crying out loud. No need to reinvent the wheel.

 

OK:

On the field. The logo cannot take the place of the yard line. The yard line has to go all the way across the field.

Most times, the part of the yard line that goes through the logo is shadowed. That is not. In Central Arkansas' case, the 45, 50, and 45 yard line would need to be shadowed through the part of the yard line that goes through the logo.

 

In my town, Lexington, Mass. there's this weird anomaly in which a field in town used for field hockey, lacrosse and youth soccer has turf while the high school football field remains natural grass which become natural mud around Columbus Day.