Blue Turf, Now Red Turf?

[BroadwayVik]

Should the NCAA allow football field turf of a color other than green? For Boise State, before working themselves into a position of prominence, they most likely used the blue field turf as a gimmick to draw media attention to themselves. They worked this angle, providing the media with a cute, innocuous name for their oddity: "Smurf Turf" became their trademark.

Like green, blue is a cool, subdued color and so no one objected to the innovation, especially since Boise State was not much of a contender at the time.

Now, Eastern Washington, taking a chapter from the book of Boise, has installed a red field turf http://www.goeags.com/facilities/ewas-roos.html at their Roos Field. Red, however, is not a cool, subdued color. It is a color associated with heat (they refer to it as "the inferno" )and the effect of playing on it is most likely perturbing to those not used to the psychological effects of "altered color-consciousness." It is unnaturally disorienting, perhaps even to the point of making one want to wretch and vomit. Who wants to play football on Mars?

Do you see how playing on a red football turf can be wholly and needlessly distracting? I am beginning to believe that this sort of home field advantage should not be allowed. I think it perverts the game of football. Red is an unnatural color for a game designed to be played on cool, green grass. And, frankly, that makes blue an unnatural color for the sport as well.

I believe the NCAA needs to pass a bylaw disallowing field turf colors other than green.

 

[DustRunner]

Red is definitely hard to look at for a football field.

 

[EdubAlum1]

Red turf featured on gameday...lucky for Portland State, your turf already matches your school colors

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=5613577

honestly, after 5 minutes, you barely even notice it's not green

 

[BroadwayVik]

PSU could make a multi-colored field. I sent the story idea onto ESPN after posting it here, specifically to the Herd, Colin Cowherd's show, he being a Wazzu grad. Apparently, they sent it on to another production staff. I'm glad they followed up on it. I'm glad Montana got beat on the red field.

These home-color turf fields, I think, are innovative but gimmicky, and policy about them needs to come before an NCAA Review Committee for a ruling. If voted down, chalk one up for balance and tradition. If allowed to stand, then strange days have indeed found us.

As a purist of the game, I do not like the trends I'm seeing nowadays like those involving the designed use of home crowd noise weighing upon the opposing team's very ability to communicate plays, or players stripping the ball away from running backs and such play being called "fumbles." They shouldn't be called fumbles, they should be called strip-aways, and tighter rules need to be drawn up about such defensive plays.

I saw in Oregon's game against Stanford a tackle (by Oregon) which forced a "fumble" (it wasn't a fumble---it was a physical ambush) and then saw Washington State give Oregon some brutal payback this week on behalf of Stanford, they having seen the same thing on the game film. Kenyan Barner ended up unconscious for a long time on the field (with LaMichael James looking on in horrified distress). He then ended up in the hospital. Thankfully, he checked out okay and was able to fly back to Eugene. I would not be surprised if he suffered some sort of long-term detriment to his neurological well-being as a result of that hit.

Why not just have two tacklers go astride of the QB, grab an arm each so the QB can't possibly hold onto the ball, allow the ball to drop and then be recovered and call that a "fumble"? As long as the QB is not "in the grasp," what is to prevent such kind of playmaking?

A fumble is much akin to an error in baseball. The running back did not "take care of the ball" and, thus, committed negligence vis-a-vis ball-security. His security of the ball did not meet squarely with the expected physics of the tackling. He committed an error and now the team has suffered a turnover.

That is a very different set of affairs from a running back getting mugged and the ball being forced violently from him. The running back did not commit any error per se. He had no reasonable means of accountability to prevent the turnover. A combination tackle, say, with one player rendering a helmet to the ball and a simultaneous hit from a second player preventing the running back's ability to recoil from the helmet blow will, almost certainly, force the ball from his grasp every time. Try as he may, there is virtually no way to prevent the dislodging of the ball.

How, then, has he been negligent in terms of his ball-security? No negligence, no fumble. It is something other than a fumble.

I think this home field color turf movement would be profitable for the home teams (in terms of wins and attendance), but when the game becomes adulterated in ways such as this, the contest turns more bizarre psychologically and the ensuing interest in it changes. The game will only then appeal to those for whom such innovations are acceptable. The purists most likely end up departing, having lost interest in the game, seeing it as degenerated, leaving the changed-game to those embracing such kinds of changes.

 

[pdxfan]

To play a far-fetched analogy, banks pushed profits as far as it would go then over the edge. No regulation. We tend to push everything over the edge, eventually. Cold calculated hits are an example. Fancy colors on the field are another. Marketing, marketing. We may want more NCAA regulation. Or we may not. It's a free market, no? Anything goes - just short of killing.

 

[EdubAlum1]

PSU could make a multi-colored field. I sent the story idea onto ESPN after posting it here, specifically to the Herd, Colin Cowherd's show, he being a Wazzu grad. Apparently, they sent it on to another production staff. I'm glad they followed up on it. I'm glad Montana got beat on the red field.

These home-color turf fields, I think, are innovative but gimmicky, and policy about them needs to come before an NCAA Review Committee for a ruling. If voted down, chalk one up for balance and tradition. If allowed to stand, then strange days have indeed found us.

Colin Cowherd is an EWU grad (not wazzu), and he donated 50k dollars toward the red field, pretty sure they knew about the turf from him already

To see a video of him talking about it check out http://goeags.com/landing/index

 

[BroadwayVik]

My error. Colin Cowherd is good for EWU. Apparently, the NCAA likes the trend of school colors for field turf:

Thank you for your e-mail. To date, our membership has not taken issue with fields that are different colors and I am unsure that this will be something that occurs in the future.

One question that is always raised in this discussion – if we change the rule for field color, then shouldn’t we also not allow green uniforms to be worn (to avoid matching the traditional green grass)? Coaches that play Boise State and others do not believe there is a competitive advantage here and therefore, we have not pursued any rules change to date.

Thank you for your interest and e-mail.

Regards,

Ty Halpin

NCAA

 

[EdubAlum1]

My error. Colin Cowherd is good for EWU. Apparently, the NCAA likes the trend of school colors for field turf:

Thank you for your e-mail. To date, our membership has not taken issue with fields that are different colors and I am unsure that this will be something that occurs in the future.

One question that is always raised in this discussion – if we change the rule for field color, then shouldn’t we also not allow green uniforms to be worn (to avoid matching the traditional green grass)? Coaches that play Boise State and others do not believe there is a competitive advantage here and therefore, we have not pursued any rules change to date.

Thank you for your interest and e-mail.

Regards,

Ty Halpin

NCAA

it's nice they responded though, instead of going into a black hole. I guess I don't think of it as being too different than being able to paint your basketball court whatever color you wanted. I'm not sure what the rule is on that, but kind of seems as long as they key isn't painted, you can do pretty much whatever you want.