When Aaron Rodgers went down with an injury just a few plays into his first season with the New York Jets, it reignited calls from NFL players to have all the stadiums in which they play use natural grass fields for their safety. In major college football, the players don’t have a union behind them to voice concerns. Most of the fields they play on are artificial turf. This season there are 94 schools that have artificial surface football fields and 39 with grass. Of those grass fields, most are
Clemson offensive lineman Will Putnam gets ready to snap the ball during an NCAA college football game against Florida Atlantic on Sept. 16, 2023, in Clemson, S.C. Most of the grass fields in top level of Division I are in the South, Southwest and California. FILE - A piece of sod is shown on the field as workers prepare the field for the NFL’s Super Bowl 50 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., Jan. 11, 2016.
Many schools find turf is cheaper to maintain, particularly for concerts or other non-athletic events, even though there are concerns about athlete injuries. “The preliminary studies have shown that there is an increase in injury risk to the lower extremity on synthetic surfaces vs. grass,” said Bud Cooper, clinical professor in the department of kinesiology at the University of Georgia . “Now, is that the Bible? It is not.”
Grice has worked at other schools where determining what surface to use in a facility wasn’t so clear cut. Ideal conditions don’t always exist and the quality of artificial turf is improving, he said. “Injuries happen on everything. I don’t ever like one thing to be the end all, be all. But I’m a grass fan,” Rhule said. “That’s why I made the practice fields grass so that we can have more reps on the softer surface.”
Erdmann said the cost of the synthetic surface South Alabama uses was about $1.6 million and estimated the initial cost of a grass field would have be similar.
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