Impact of the new facilty/complex ??

[Wolegib]

on many subjects, I'm rather dumb. Educate me on the impact of this new sports complex. Will it be used for all athletes in all sports? is it really that big of an attraction in recruiting? What other schools have something similar? how much of an impact will it have on wins? What does it really provide that we don't have now? Were we really that far behind facilities wise than our competition and BIG 10 opponents?

I keep reading posts that include the phrase "and with our new facility, we will....."

Is it really going to make that big of an impact?

 

[nat100]

Yes, more for what it says than what it is.

 

[BoilerStutz]

I think having real coaches in place is what is making the difference

 

[Bullwhip Griffith]

Yes, more for what it says than what it is.

 

[JohnnyDoeBoiler]

on many subjects, I'm rather dumb. Educate me on the impact of this new sports complex. Will it be used for all athletes in all sports? is it really that big of an attraction in recruiting? What other schools have something similar? how much of an impact will it have on wins? What does it really provide that we don't have now? Were we really that far behind facilities wise than our competition and BIG 10 opponents?

I keep reading posts that include the phrase "and with our new facility, we will....."

Is it really going to make that big of an impact?

Only for football players and staff. The single biggest improvement is that the weight room finally is able to house the entire team at once. Previously they could only lift in two and sometimes three different shifts. The other big improvement is likely the better recovery and physical training tools in place.

 

[boilerbusdriver]

Coaches must connect with recruits first and foremost and all the details that go with that, secondly, having brand new state-of-the-art facilities to train/recover certainly can't hurt or get in the way of a recruits thinking. Training together should only help solidify the bonding process between Freshmen and Seniors.

Just thinkin, where this program will be in 2-3 years is down right fun.

 

[boiler800]

I think having real coaches in place is what is making the difference

Having real coaches, and a state of the art showpiece new facility, and lights at Ross-Ade all project an image of "We're serious about winning at Purdue". These things are making a big difference.

 

[JohnnyDoeBoiler]

Sort of OT, but do you think Purdue ever goes to a turf playing field rather than natural grass? I know since the debacle of the grass over a decade ago there has been little issue, but would that come in to play at all? I believe it was Hazell who said recruits would mention how terrible the field looked on visits during the late fall through the middle of summer during visits.

 

[BoilerBulldog]

Sort of OT, but do you think Purdue ever goes to a turf playing field rather than natural grass? I know since the debacle of the grass over a decade ago there has been little issue, but would that come in to play at all? I believe it was Hazell who said recruits would mention how terrible the field looked on visits during the late fall through the middle of summer during visits.

I personally hope so.

 

[FirstDownB]

I personally hope so.

As long as we are going to have a team built around speed, I think that is the way to go. And I don't see us trying the 3 yards and a cloud of dust approach anytime soon. At least I hope not.

 

[Wolegib]

my thoughts are that you should use everything you have to your advantage. The bears and packers used to have a slow offense, and played in bad weather conditions, , so they played on grass in the past. In an effort to slow their opponents, the Bears were known to keep their grass at longer than normal length just for that purpose. on the other hand, teams like the Colts, Dolphins, Lions, and Saints were built around having speed, and played on turf.

the Cubs and Brewers have tailored their teams to take advantage of their stadiums as have the Yankees. Rather than going for speed and defense, all three teams have built their success on having players who can hit the long ball.

if Purdue wants a team built around speed, then it should look into having a turf. However, if they want to use their stadium to their advantage, they need to build a team that can take advantage of grass. Rather than speedy receivers, they may need to recruit receivers like Gronkowski, Jennings, Don Driver and Jordy Nelson who excel at getting open and catching the ball without blazing speed, and then make a lot of yardage after the catch. That was Driver's and Gronk's specialty.

Didn't Purdue put a lot of research and effort and patents into building its grass field with its unique drainage system? if so, going to turf would undermine the financial marketing of their type of grass, and water drainage stadium field.

 

[FirstDownB]

my thoughts are that you should use everything you have to your advantage. The bears and packers used to have a slow offense, and played in bad weather conditions, , so they played on grass in the past. In an effort to slow their opponents, the Bears were known to keep their grass at longer than normal length just for that purpose. on the other hand, teams like the Colts, Dolphins, Lions, and Saints were built around having speed, and played on turf.

the Cubs and Brewers have tailored their teams to take advantage of their stadiums as have the Yankees. Rather than going for speed and defense, all three teams have built their success on having players who can hit the long ball.

if Purdue wants a team built around speed, then it should look into having a turf. However, if they want to use their stadium to their advantage, they need to build a team that can take advantage of grass. Rather than speedy receivers, they may need to recruit receivers like Gronkowski, Jennings, Don Driver and Jordy Nelson who excel at getting open and catching the ball without blazing speed, and then make a lot of yardage after the catch. That was Driver's and Gronk's specialty.

Didn't Purdue put a lot of research and effort and patents into building its grass field with its unique drainage system? if so, going to turf would undermine the financial marketing of their type of grass, and water drainage stadium field.

Prescription Athletic Turf, they call it. Was certainly innovative back in the 1970's when the artificial option was original Astroturf, which resembled indoor/outdoor carpeting. Meanwhile there have been tremendous advancements in the past few decades to improve the look and feel of artificial playing surfaces.
As far as marketing, I'm not sure what advantage this is giving Purdue. I think Soldier Field in Chicago has PAT and is widely considered one of the worst fields in the NFL. Other places that once had PAT have since gone away from it in favor of more modern options. Perhaps the Purdue brand could be better served by helping to innovate the next progression of artificial turf advancement with engineering and materials science research.

 

[Boilerbuck]

Sort of OT, but do you think Purdue ever goes to a turf playing field rather than natural grass? I know since the debacle of the grass over a decade ago there has been little issue, but would that come in to play at all? I believe it was Hazell who said recruits would mention how terrible the field looked on visits during the late fall through the middle of summer during visits.

I hate artificial turf. I hope it never happens at Purdue in my lifetime. There are advantages to it for sure, but I like being different. You can win on grass as much as you can on turf.

 

[Wolegib]

I thought there was a new type of football field that had a mixture of artificial turf in sort of a template with regular grass growing through a mesh. I'm not sure if that was at Purdue. As a Packers fan, I know that the "frozen tundra" had a series of heating pipes underneath, but I'm not so sure the groundskeepers ever turned them on. They basically just come in with a plow and bristles to remove the snow. I have noticed on several football fields where the grounds crew painted the dead grass green, and in some cases painted the dirt spots green as well. Both Green Bay and Chicago have brought in sod for playoff games. I'm not a horticulturist, but I have a hard time understanding how sod is going to take root in December.

 

[ptree06]

my thoughts are that you should use everything you have to your advantage. The bears and packers used to have a slow offense, and played in bad weather conditions, , so they played on grass in the past. In an effort to slow their opponents, the Bears were known to keep their grass at longer than normal length just for that purpose. on the other hand, teams like the Colts, Dolphins, Lions, and Saints were built around having speed, and played on turf.

the Cubs and Brewers have tailored their teams to take advantage of their stadiums as have the Yankees. Rather than going for speed and defense, all three teams have built their success on having players who can hit the long ball.

if Purdue wants a team built around speed, then it should look into having a turf. However, if they want to use their stadium to their advantage, they need to build a team that can take advantage of grass. Rather than speedy receivers, they may need to recruit receivers like Gronkowski, Jennings, Don Driver and Jordy Nelson who excel at getting open and catching the ball without blazing speed, and then make a lot of yardage after the catch. That was Driver's and Gronk's specialty.

Didn't Purdue put a lot of research and effort and patents into building its grass field with its unique drainage system? if so, going to turf would undermine the financial marketing of their type of grass, and water drainage stadium field.

Is there any evidence that relative speed (vs opponent) is more pronounced on turf than grass? I'd think if one guy is faster than another, it wouldn't matter what surface they run on.

 

[JohnnyDoeBoiler]

Is there any evidence that relative speed (vs opponent) is more pronounced on turf than grass? I'd think if one guy is faster than another, it wouldn't matter what surface they run on.

From Livestrong's website:

'The Philly website state that artificial turf helps football players with agility drills. According to the October 2010 issue of the "Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research," college football players were 3 percent faster on an artificial turf over a grass surface, although it only slightly changed their 40-yard dash times. Running the 40-yard dash on turf can be challenging if you are not wearing the correct shoes. Track running shoes will not work well on turf, so you'll need to look for lightweight shoes with cleats. According to NFL Combine Workout, wearing the right type of shoes on the turf can help you run faster.

...there is no information to state whether running the 40-yard dash on turf or track is quicker or better. However, the NFL states that running on a track or turf is faster than running on grass.'

However, from a research gate analysis that I believe is indicative of true results:

The purpose of this study was to determine the difference in 40-yd dash and proagility times performed on field turf (FT) and natural grass (NG). Red-shirt freshmen National Collegiate Athletic Association Division II college football players (n = 24) performed 2 trials each of a 40-yd dash and proagility run on each surface. Sprints were timed by an electronic timing system (ET) and by 2 hand timers (HTs). Agility was timed on each surface by 2 HTs. There was no significant difference in 40-yd dash times between FT and NG using ET (FT: 5.34 ± 0.30 seconds, NG: 5.33 ± 0.33 seconds) or HT (FT: 5.06 ± 0.31 seconds, NG: 5.11 ± 0.29 seconds). Hand timer 40-yd dashes were significantly faster than ET 40-yd dashes on both surfaces, with the difference between HT and ET on FT (-0.28 ± 0.11 seconds) significantly greater than the difference on NG (-0.22 ± 0.06 seconds). The time differences between surfaces were significantly correlated (r = 0.12, p = 0.56). Proagility times were significantly faster on FT (4.49 ± 0.28 seconds) than on grass (4.64 ± 0.33 seconds). Thus, it appears that straight-ahead sprint speed is similar between FT and NG, but change-of-direction speed may be significantly faster on FT.

 

[Wolegib]

I have actual evidence that temperature affects players' speed. I attend a lot of NCAA track meets. And the speed , especially for sprinters, improves with temperature. I've also noticed a lot of Florida football players when forced to play in colder, Northern stadiums seem to lose all their speed advantage, whereas players who are from the North, seem to be just as fast in the cold as they are in the heat. This was especially true when Tampa Bay played a play-off game against the Eagles on a really cold day. This has always been true in play-off games in Lambeau where visiting teams from the South always seem to lose their speed. I can't comment on Bears play-off games. The vikings and lions don't count as their games were indoors. The Patriots and Steelers have also used snow and snow blowers to their advantage.

 

[boiler800]

Is there any evidence that relative speed (vs opponent) is more pronounced on turf than grass? I'd think if one guy is faster than another, it wouldn't matter what surface they run on.

If the type of surface you are running on makes people slightly faster, then all people will be slightly faster. It doesn't just favor those that are already fast and make only them faster. In other words, if one surface is easier to run on, then that will be true for everybody.

 

[ptree06]

If the type of surface you are running on makes people slightly faster, then all people will be slightly faster. It doesn't just favor those that are already fast and make only them faster. In other words, if one surface is easier to run on, then that will be true for everybody.

Exactly... so people favoring turf so we can be speed team makes no sense, since our opponents will be playing on same surface as us

 

[FirstDownB]

Is there any evidence that relative speed (vs opponent) is more pronounced on turf than grass? I'd think if one guy is faster than another, it wouldn't matter what surface they run on.

Two things:
(1) It's not so much about straight line speed as it is the ability to make sharp cuts
(2) I'm not convinced that a slow surface hinder a guy with average speed by the same amount it hinders a speedster. Poor footing probably tends to have an evening of the playing field effect, pun intended.

 

[Wolegib]

I look at a guy like Gronk. and Megatron is Gronk any faster on turf than he is on grass? I doubt it. Is he a better player on turf? I doubt it. However, I believe Megatron was a much better and faster player on turf than he was on grass. As a result, the lions were a lot better at home than on the road.

And I believe a smart coach knows the status of facilities and if they are going to change anytime soon. Is our field going to switch to turf anytime soon? I doubt it. that said, would it be better to have tall receivers who are known for catching the ball and making plays after wards, than having speed burning fly pattern receivers?

I grew up loving the west coast offense and the double, bubble TE set, and throwing the dink to the RB and churning it out on 6 minute drives, rather than the 15 second home run ball. I think we may have actually caused more harm than not with all our quick scoring drives, as the defense was out on the field a lot and tired out.

 

[Purduski]

IF this place has all the bells and whistles- (I've heard it does) the biggest selling point is the one-stop shop. Place will have training table, computers, big screens with game consoles, recliner chairs and quiet rooms.
Let's just say a player was lucky distance wise and was a Quad guy before moving off campus. He still, had a fair amount of distance to cover from CPU labs to dining hall to back for lift, to downtime at home if he wanted to nap or do Xbox. Now imagine living on other side of campus- or even Lafayette like many do. And as mentioned- they had to lift in shifts. This gives them all options on one spot and keeps the kids centralized and accounted for which every coach and administrator loves.