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Penn State Football: Beaver Stadium Field Replaced While Nittany Lions Hit The Road

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Ben Jones

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It’s no secret that Penn State’s turf grass management program is one of the best in the nation.

But for a football field last over 10 years through the rain and weather, the games and the cleats. That’s impressive.

All good things come to an end though, and so, when the Nittany Lions return for a Halloween meeting against Illinois there will be new grass under their feet as grounds crews are putting on the finishing touches to a new field this week.

The previous surface was installed during the days leading up to the meeting between Penn State and Ohio State on Oct. 8, 2005. 

“The age of our playing surface, the intense nature of five straight football games, the weather we endured, and the high standard we hold ourselves to combined to bring about this decision in order to continue providing the most stable playing surface possible,” Athletic Fields Supervisor Herb Combs said in a story on GoPSUSports.com “The new sod will be better than the previous playing surface for the next two games and into 2016.”

According to Penn State approximately 70,000 square feet of sod will be used to complete the stadium playing surface and the nursery on campus. The nursery is used for general field maintenance across the numerous grass playing surfaces on campus. The field came from Tuckahoe Turf Farms in Hammonton, N.J.

Tuckahoe Turf Farms supplies several NFL organizations with sod, including the Cleveland Browns, Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers.

The sod is ordered as thick as the turf farm can cut it at 1-3/4-inch of soil. It arrived at Beaver Stadium via trucks in pieces that are four feet wide and 30 feet long. A special machine is used to mesh the pieces together as they are added to the surface.

Will it make a difference? That remains to be seen. Chances are though the new grass won’t be part of a game quite as historic as the Nittany Lions’ victory over Ohio State.

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