Brown Not Pleased With 'Dangerous' Field Conditions
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SAN DIEGO – Petco Park is home to the San Diego Padres baseball team, but Wednesday night, it was home to the Holiday Bowl for technically the first time.
Last year’s game between UCLA and NC State was canceled at the last minute, but the Oregon-North Carolina went on as scheduled, though there was concern about the field conditions long before the opening kickoff.
It rained for much of Tuesday night in the San Diego area, and while there was a tarp on the field, it was still very wet in spots, and soaked around the perimeter of the field. In addition, the turf was clearly laid down in rectangles, most of which were outlined by the space in between then, as THI photographed and tweeted before the game.
The conditions were not up to par for a Power 5 football game, but the game still went on, as Oregon defeated UNC 28-27.
“The guys did a great job, but it was very dangerous,” UNC Coach Mack Brown said, referring to the grounds crew that regularly sanded and pounded a huge area of the field on the infield side of the football field. “And it was just on one end. I don’t know if it was a hole in the tarp, it was so soggy that we started trying to figure out which way do you kick?
“The first field goal that we kicked (Noah Burnette) slipped. The first series we went out, (offensive tackle) Asim (Richards) Slipped, then (quarterback) Drake (Maye) slipped.”
There were massive divots on the other end of the field in the end zone 90 minutes before kickoff. And the sticking, for lack of a better term, was a major issue and could have been deemed as a threat to the health of the players.
UNC Director of Athletics Bubba Cunningham spent time on the field with what appeared to be a bowl official walking the field discussing its condition. Brown also took additional time to have similar conversations. He was discussing ways to work around what was clearly an easily identifiable problem.
“We were, and I said, ‘Can you just have a guy roll it after every series,’” Brown said he requested. “There were huge divots where these huge kids were planting their foot and were sliding. It was awful. And I was worried about somebody tearing a knee. Obviously, the game still went on, but that’s obviously something that needs to be fixed.”
Fortunately, there doesn’t appear to have been any field-related injuries, so everyone was fortunate. But it did affect the game at times, and was cause for concern all along.
“I’m not sure they would have let an NFL team play…,” Brown said. “I told them (bowl officials) that needs to be fixed before next year.”
This was UNC’s second game this season in a baseball stadium, though their contest at Georgia State in September, played at what was once called Turner Field when it was home to the Atlanta Braves, was played on artificial turf.
With issues in the Oklahoma State-Wisconsin game played Tuesday night where the Arizona Diamondbacks play, it raised the question if bowl games should even be held in baseball stadiums. The ACC has two other bowl tie-ins in ballparks, at famed Fenway Park in Boston and Yankee Stadium in New York.
Is it time college football move away from holding contests on baseball fields that host a single game each season?
“It’s not my place to say,” Brown said, “but the field wasn’t as safe as it needed to be.”
Previously, the Holiday Bowl was held in the San Diego Stadium, once also known at Jack Murphy Stadium, which was the longtime home of the San Diego Chargers. That facility was razed two years ago and the game was moved to the Padres’ home.
