The University of Mississippi Athletics
FieldTurf Installation Complete
9/4/2009 | Football
OXFORD, Miss. - When Coach Houston Nutt's Ole Miss team opens the home portion of its 2009 football schedule here Saturday night, Sept. 19, at 6:30, Rebel fans will quickly observe a new playing surface on Hollingsworth Field once inside Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.
The transformation took place over a two week period as workers removed the synthetic grass AstroPlay, which was installed in the summer of 2003, and replaced it with FieldTurf.
"This new surface is just beautiful and is going to brighten up our stadium," Nutt said. "Our fans are going to love it and, most of all, our players are going to enjoy playing on it. As I said when we announced the selection of FieldTurf, it looks like grass, it feels like grass and it plays like grass. We felt like FieldTurf was the best choice."
"Coach Nutt has built one of the best programs in the country, and it is fitting that he has one of the best surfaces to play on," said FieldTurf CEO Joe Fields. "We had only two weeks to install the surface and we literally stopped the presses for this one, making Ole Miss our top priority from design to manufacturing to installation."
The project was made possible by two anonymous donors.
Ole Miss becomes the first team in the Southeastern Conference to play its home games on FieldTurf. Currently four other SEC teams Florida, Georgia, Kentucky and Vanderbilt practice on FieldTurf.
Vaught-Hemingway Stadium was first built in 1915 and has a long history of playing its home football games on artificial turf. In fact, the stadium had been among the first in the nation to switch from a natural grass playing surface to artificial turf in 1970. Recent renovations to the stadium have included new seating, luxury boxes and a new high definition video scoreboard.
More than 100 top NCAA programs currently play and/or practice on FieldTurf including Nebraska, Ohio State, Michigan, Texas, West Virginia, Washington, Oregon, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas State, Boston College, Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Texas Tech, Rutgers, Syracuse, Cincinnati and Louisville. Twenty-one of the NFL's 32 teams presently utilize FieldTurf in their stadiums and/or practice facilities. In addition, MLB's Tampa Bay Rays, Minnesota Twins and Toronto Blue Jays have FieldTurf at their respective stadiums.
The transformation took place over a two week period as workers removed the synthetic grass AstroPlay, which was installed in the summer of 2003, and replaced it with FieldTurf.
"This new surface is just beautiful and is going to brighten up our stadium," Nutt said. "Our fans are going to love it and, most of all, our players are going to enjoy playing on it. As I said when we announced the selection of FieldTurf, it looks like grass, it feels like grass and it plays like grass. We felt like FieldTurf was the best choice."
"Coach Nutt has built one of the best programs in the country, and it is fitting that he has one of the best surfaces to play on," said FieldTurf CEO Joe Fields. "We had only two weeks to install the surface and we literally stopped the presses for this one, making Ole Miss our top priority from design to manufacturing to installation."
The project was made possible by two anonymous donors.
Ole Miss becomes the first team in the Southeastern Conference to play its home games on FieldTurf. Currently four other SEC teams Florida, Georgia, Kentucky and Vanderbilt practice on FieldTurf.
Vaught-Hemingway Stadium was first built in 1915 and has a long history of playing its home football games on artificial turf. In fact, the stadium had been among the first in the nation to switch from a natural grass playing surface to artificial turf in 1970. Recent renovations to the stadium have included new seating, luxury boxes and a new high definition video scoreboard.
More than 100 top NCAA programs currently play and/or practice on FieldTurf including Nebraska, Ohio State, Michigan, Texas, West Virginia, Washington, Oregon, Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas State, Boston College, Indiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Texas Tech, Rutgers, Syracuse, Cincinnati and Louisville. Twenty-one of the NFL's 32 teams presently utilize FieldTurf in their stadiums and/or practice facilities. In addition, MLB's Tampa Bay Rays, Minnesota Twins and Toronto Blue Jays have FieldTurf at their respective stadiums.
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