WSR Gridiron Report

I agree that the grass really looked bad in the last few games last year. If the turf is safe for the athletes to play on, and gives us an advantage with our speed-based system, I'm all for it. I don't want to see kids getting injured due to the new artificial turf though.

Yes it is a done deal, I do not like it but what can I do. They have improved the turfs but if grass is good for Chase and UOP why not Uof A. I guess I will have to consider whether to make my Wildcat Club donation this year or not.

I think this is on RR and I hope it works.

Jim

Agree with JJones about making my Wildcat Club donation this year. I am really very disappointed in the way this has come about. It is on RichRod and I hope it is not indicative of a guy who has to make a bunch of demands and get his way as was alleged at WVU.

Here is a link to some studies, not in the 1970s but within the past five years. Scroll down and look at the paragraph describing the temperatures on the Field Turf at BYU of 200 degrees. There was a very detailed study that showed what a disaster this can be. Why did the Bidwells, hardly the prototype for big spending, opt for the expense of rolling their natural turf in and out of the stadium vis a vis installing field turf? Very disappointed for the second time in G.B.

http://www.synturf.org/heateffect.html

remember a few yaers ago...maybe a lot actually. but I seem to remember that U of A won prizes for the best looking fieldin the NCAA.
It was classy. MI do not likenthe turf crap....but it has come a very longnway..and if itnhelps the team...go for it. No more lawn mowers tho....

Really, if your going to donate or not based on what kind of grass in the stadium you just shouldn't bother at all. Sometimes we have to fight the instinct to be a crotchety old bastard that hates change just on general principles. Myself included.

I come from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and still sit on the Alumni BOD. Arizona has one of the great turf programs in the world. If you play golf or play on a high use field Arizona has a high chance of developing the strain of grass you are running on. That's true for a lot of the western and southern U.S. I recently played golf on a course not far from Whistler, British Columbia where both the fairway and greens grasses came from the UofA. Progress has been made in living plants just like in plastic. I personally believe this is about cost and a compromise with time. Quality turf does require a period of time to become hardy to the pounding it is going to get. However turf farms are big business in this state and getting quality turf is not a problem. With a proper preparation of the surface, which is not difficult, grass can take a pounding with 60 days of allowing the roots to gain depth and strength. Quite frankly, if they only get on it for the games, it won't take that long and it will gain as the season goes on. Ricky is right with his assessment. If artificial grass was even close to the quality of real grass, you would see it in the UofP stadium where the Cardinals play. The Bidwells are paying a fortune to keep the players happy and gain a little evaporative cooling.

Herroooo....that's why I said "supposedly". Regardless, the positives out weigh the negatives by a wide margin. So its hot...last I checked both teams play on the same surface. Both teams will be hot, except we'll be used to it. We're already practicing on field turf now anyway. Its gonna happen apparently so it is what it is.

With your background you must also be aware of MERSA and other issues noted in this study:

http://carla-marie-boulianne.suite101.com/artificial-field-turf-vs-natural-grass-safety-a70774

I may be a beeeyotch, but I care about common sense decisions. You want to build an enclosed practice facility at the baseball stadium--no problem, I'm open to listen from a heat perspective. You want to do almost anything to safely "better" the conditioning and skill level of our athletes I'm fine with it. But to just defer to RR after 4 months here and no clue of what he's getting into weather wise this is not sound policy analysis on how to spend athletic department money. Has there been even a modicum of cost benefit analysis? My guess is no because frankly, they couldn't have and come up with these conclusions.

I also have to wince when I hear the logic about how it's to play to our strength as a speed team under RR. Does anyone really think the team we are playing isn't also going to be equally faster relative to what their normal team speed is? If our 4.5 guy runs a 4.4 on this stuff which I highly doubt, then the other teams 4.5 guy we compete against will also be running a 4.4.

Finally, it's purely anecdotal, but does it seem like we suffered a lot of knee injuries lately since Stoops got his 40 yards of field turf installed at Jimenez? Muscle memory, different muscles being used when you skip back and forth, I don't know. I do know some famous ball player, I think the great Joe Morgan, said it best, "if the cows won't eat it, I don't want to play on it."

Btw Rick, if you look at the respective post time-stamps I actually posted before you did....by an hour. Probably because i'm on a phone.

If we are going to go all in for football then raze Sancet field because we don't need it now that we are playing baseball at Hi Corbett.

There is room for an artificial practice surface and a practice surface in grass. Then the GRASS in the stadium is only used for games.

I think there is also additional room to the north of the stadium for a practice field. The point is that we don't have to practice in Arizona Stadium.

We need a new culture and mindset for the PLAYERS.

All of a sudden this crazy plan is announced with no discussion and everyone is supposed to be all in? That is more than crazy.

All boosters should say NO.

Whatever BM, but I don't think the 18 year olds have been polled. This is a Rich Rod decision, clearly. I remember when I was in school sitting around a table at the student union and talking/listening to Jackie Wallace, Ray Clarke and a couple other of my friends who had played at Michigan and they sure didn't like the surface. Of course, that was back in the 70s.

BM, Richie Allen, thank you. From my favorite team. JJones, thanks for your elucidation on MRSA.

Here's an interesting update from 2010 on knee injuries on Field Turf involving the NFL, which of course, the manufacturer deemed a flawed study. Of course he would. Eighty-eight percent; that's 88% more often that injuries occurred on Field Turf.

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2010/03/12/study-finds-acl-injuries-more-common-on-fieldturf/