The mild weather has been a blessing for the NDSU football team as it prepares for the title game on Jan. 7. With no snow, it has gotten on the grass practice fields, important since FC Dallas Stadium is also a grass surface plus the Rumble on the Red wrestling tournament has the Fargodome occupied.
A year ago tomorrow, the blizzard and zero degree temperatures hit the F-M Area. If that were to happen this year, the team would have had to blow the snow off of its Sprinturf practice field and weather the bad weather — like it did prior to the Montana State playoff game last year. Head coach Craig Bohl said the middle of the three NDSU grass practice fields was not frozen and players were able to dig their cleats into the surface. “A phenomenal surprise,” Bohl said.
On the injury front, left tackle Billy Turner did not practice yesterday because of a twisted ankle and his status for today was not known.
The new turf looks really nice. It will be hard to miss the yellow endzones. I like the big Bison at midfield. I see that the FargoDome kept their logo on the turf at the 25 yard line on each end of the field. Do you know how much softer the new turf will be?
You jinxed us. Its snowing! some day if we keep making late season runs we may need an indoor facility to practice in. After the Bsa is finished wonder how much that would cost?
Do you ever shut up?
I agree Gabe. I think the new turf is great. I wish the Dome would go to Green seats the blue and red look tacky. Hey they could sell the blue seats ones to SDSU they are going to add on to their football stadium and renovate Frost arena I bet they would like to get some seats at a discount instead of having to pay full price for brand new ones. The next thing is to look at a new facility down the road. I don’t mean next year or in 5 years but I think in 10 years the Bison need to be looking for a new stadium. With the way the school and Fargo-Moorhead is growing the dome will be too small. The Bison had over 18,000 fans at all but one game. They need to start planning now for the future. A stadium that would hold 30,000 people or more. Most important is to build a facility that can be expanded to say 40,000 or more in the future.
No doubt NDSU is in need of a new facility, both practice (indoor) and home field. 25,000 will probably be enough. When the team isn’t winning, attendance will be down. The article today in the Forum about the new turf being a recruiting tool is a joke. Winning is more important as well as a nice facility. NDSU had one of the two.
I am also pretty sure that the grass on the practice fields and the grass in Frisco, Texas are nothing alike. That advantage goes to SHSU. The grass in Fargo is brown, dead, and the ground is hard.
NDSU needs to keep a dome for the stadium. Attendance has been way up since they went to the dome. Attendance always went down in the winter at Dacotah Field. I think the next step if the games keep selling out is to televise all the home games (in HD please). Getting the exposure from TV will add support and will grow the donor base to help pay for some of the upgrades.
I think it will be a long time before the Bison are playing in any stadium except the FargoDome.
I think we need to get at least 2 games per year on Fox Sports Net North . The Gophers are leaving to the Big Ten Network next year . The channel is HD, available nationally, and is a basic cable channel for North Dakota, South Dakota , and more importantly Minneapolis .
(cont ) Its the same channel that broadcasts the Twins , Wild , Wolves, Lynx , as well as Viking news. . We want to be on the same channel as the big dogs of professional sports . That changes the perception of Bison athletics .
It won’t change anything. I do want it tho. FSN just launched a new channel called FSN Plus, so that’s a possibility, it has limited availability at this point tho.
BisonFan I am not saying build something in the near future just be looking ahead maybe 10 years down the road. Sanford had an article in the paper with their population projections for the F-M metro and if they are even near correct the Dome will be too small for many things not just Bison Football. I would hope that another dome would be built. No doubt playing indoors in this climate is the way to go. The other thing is the building has to be built with the ability to be expanded. If the Fargodome had the ability to expand now it would be the perfect scenario. It could be expanded to 25 or 30 thousand in the next 5 to 10 years. But unfortunately that isn’t the case.
It all depends if we plan on moving up. If yes we need something bigger . Personally I like the FCS . I wonder if its possible to add capacity to the dome ? A few thousand seats would make a major difference
I wish the corners could be bowled in, I’m sure it would do a lot for sound as well.
I hope you are joking? “plan on moving up”? NDSU is barely able to scrape together athletic facilities for a FCS program.
“scrape together facilities” what? When the BSA is done NDSU will arguably have the best in FCS. New Track and Field facility, FargoDome, RedHawks Stadium and a renovated BSA should all rank in the top 5-10 FCS facilities! What other FCS school has as much?
FCS stands for FOOTBALL Championship Subdivision. No stepping up to FBS with a city owned dome and no indoor practice facility/weight room facility, coaches offices. Look to quality FCS programs like Georgia Southern, Youngstown State or Appalachian State and the first class facilities they have. Maybe even look up interstate 29.
NDSU needs to find a donor to help them out on a facility of THEIR OWN, to practice and play in….Scheels, Sanford Health, State Bank & Trust, RDO, Border States Electric…