Natural grass – and mud – create the aroma of the game. That’s part of the game for me and many other fans. The simple ruggedness of the playing field represents what is best about ND football and what has re-emerged this year in the team: toughness, dedication to doing the little things right, simple focus on fundamentals. The unadorned field unequivocally states to the opponent that we are here in this stadium for two reasons, and two reasons only. To give glory to God and to beat the living snot, will, and breath out of any team who arrives to play us. This is the tradition of Notre Dame football: To play the game at the highest level, with the most integrity, and with the most intensity and ferocity of any team in the nation. There are no distractions – and should be none- in the stadium. Just grass and some white lines, my friends.

PS – From my experience working at a high school with turf, I can say that turf leads to more injuries and more staph infections.

What’s innovative about synthetic grass? Is this cutting edge? No, been around for at least 40 years. Hopefully Yankee stadium, Lambeau field and Wrigley field don’t follow your logic and try to squeeze more use out of their facilities. Keep the grass, maintain tradition and the experience that Rockne & Co. shared (and, yes, we do have a tradition of playing on grass). See that’s the point of old venues, you can sit there and say “this is just like it was way back when.” Next you’ll probably argue that we should innovatively sell advertising in the stadium by putting up big McDonald’s signs, etc., to raise more money for the program. What’s not to like right? Nonsense. An innovative new retractable roof? Increase utility year round! Why not!!? Nonsense.

Go Irish! Beat Trojans!!

I’d be disappointed if Jack doesn’t give this serious consideration…seems ideal for ND stadium.

Notre Dame doesn’t have a tradition of playing on grass. It has a tradition of playing high level football. Changing to some sort of synthetic field is not biting the hand that feeds it, it isn’t ruining an unparalleled experience and those who recently graduated might tell you that graduating inside the largest central structure on ND’s campus would enhance the tradition. Fund raising will not be hurt by the fact that we added a new playing surface inside Notre Dame Stadium that won’t come up in clumps in late November.

In fact, the further back you look through history, the more you will realize that ND’s tradition is actually one of innovation. The only reason we are currently clinging to relics that happen to be associated with Notre Dame (like grass) is because for that period of 17+ years where we’ve lacked leadership, Notre Dame has stopped it’s tradition of innovation due to the poor leadership at the helm and those relics were all we had left to hold onto. Don’t confuse the central identity of our football program (academics, character, winning) with the white noise around it, as old-school as it all may be.

Is it just me, or are those names stupid?

John, a different surface is not going to equate to championships. You really think we stopped winning titles becuase of the grass? Huh? I have three words for you: Davie, Willingham, Weis. Also, you can’t take a random 24 year period and make an erroneous argument. We won 1 championship because our team lacked leadership after Holtz, another story for another time. Holtz teams dominated on grass over his time there, I could take that period of time as well (overall he had 3 one loss teams in addition to the ’88 team; and I think he had a 3 year undefeated at home period).

My point is that tradition brings money to this program. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. But, more importatnly, it brings an unparalleled experience. Change that so fund raisers can take place on the field? Ah, the irony.

I think the ACC needs to do 4 things. One is to bring in Temple and UConn, and maybe even Louisville and Cincinnati, although there may be some academic questions regarding the latter two. Secondly is to institute an academic consorsium similiar to the B1G CIC. Third, get a full blown ACC network going to capture the East Coast market. And probably hand in hand with this is to institute equal revenue sharing between all of their members, which could be really interesting given ND’s position within the conference, and probably ND’s reluctance to go down that road.

Replies:

1. We have won many titles on grass but none in the last 24 years. Even if we manage to win one this year, is 1 out of every 24 good enough for you? If we could just ONE more title because of this playing surface, would that be worth it to you? I’m not saying we will, but your argument here holds no water.

2. Tough players play well on any surface. But we don’t have a team of 85 Timmy Browns, Michael Stonebreakers or Paul Hornungs. Nobody does! If a new surface has a playing advantage for the ENTIRE team, then its worth it.

3. The majority of the people who use the stadium on game days will not be the same people using it for other functions. The two usages have no relationship. Im pretty sure the graduating students won’t find their special day “ruined” because they were just in the stadium 6 months earlier for a football game. And the die hard fan who makes a pilgrimage to South Bend for a game won’t care that there was a big fund raising event there a few weeks earlier.

There are only a few reasons to get field turf: faster surface, easier maintenance. There are only a few reasons to not want field turf: injury risk and tradition. I’m no expert on the details but I’m with Mike on this one. Put one in and see how the team does. If its universally hated then rip it out and go back to grass.

1) Competitive advantage: the team will play on a guaranteed fast surface week in and week out.

RESPONSE: We have won many titles on grass, and we went undefeated this year at home and may win another title.

2) Practice in the stadium: Kelly has been quoted essentially saying that by having the players in the stadium more, they’ll be less awe-struck on Saturday and play better.

REPONSE: Tell that to Timmy Brown, Michael Stonebreaker, Paul Hornung… Give me a break, we’re more mentally tough than that. And: we won them all this year!

3) More utilization of the stadium: alumni events/graduation, etc.

RESPONSE: Why the need to make more use of this stadium?! One of the things that makes it “the hallowed grounds” is it’s locked up the rest of the year and it’s hard to get a ticket and actually be in there. Over-exposing it and having people prance around on the field all year round removes this sense of rarity. I graduated in the JACC and it went fine (hard ticket for family, but whatever)

I’ll never forget my first game in ’90 when I was 11 years old, walking out to my seat and seeing that perfectly manicured turf for the first time, tingles up the spine. I hope I can do that with my son in 10 years. Leave Rockne’s house alone. Keep it unique.