San Diego State's Rocky Long Calls Boise Turf "Unfair"

Thanks to their enormous success, Boise State was everyone's rival when they played in the WAC. The Broncos have yet to officially lace 'em up in the Mountain West and they're already taking shots from others around the conference.

This time it's San Diego State head coach Rocky Long who sounded off about the Broncos and their famous blue turf.

Via Brian Murphy at The Idaho Statesman:
"I think they ought to get rid of that blue turf. I think it's unfair," said Long, the former New Mexico coach who is in his first season as the Aztecs' head coach. 
When asked to expand, Long said, "it takes the visiting team a quarter or two to get used to that different field."
Unfortunately for Long, things seem to be going in the opposite direction. Since Boise came to prominence, both Eastern Washington and New Braunfels (TX) Canyon High School have gone red while there were rumors that UT-San Antonio could end up with an orange field. In fact, when you consider some of the new, avant-garde playing surfaces out there (I'm looking at you, Oregon basketball), this trend seems to be all the rage amongst athletic departments seeking more revenue and/or attention.

Maybe Long should convince the folks at SDSU to roll out the nation's first all-black field. That'll show 'em.

5 comments:

  1. I'm with Rocky on this one!! When they wear their blue uniforms, with blue helmets, the QB's can't really see the safetys or linebackers down field!!! yes they are good however I do think it's a unfair advantage

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  2. how is it an unfair advantage...does that mean teams that wear green like Michigan State have to change their green field to blue??!!! What a ridiculous claim SDSU's coach makes..

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  3. You always get the same comments from people watching the game on TV. Blue does blend in to blue on the field, but when you are down on the field, you get a different perspective. Also, don't you think if the blue really was an advantage, that the Boise quarterbacks, throwing to BLUE receivers against a BLUE field would be to hard? Get real. Everyone likes to come with up reasons they can't beat Boise at home, and it's not the blue field. It is because Boise is a good football team.

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  4. Any real football player (or coach, in this case) knows that the color of a teams jersey and turf have basically no effect on the "camo factor"...which leads be to believe that ol' Rocky is just making excuses for the future beatings! Besides, Boise seems to do just fine on the road...and when they wore orange uni's at home they took care of business as well.

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  5. I think we've reached a point where it's only a matter of time until the NCAA is forced to pass a rule limiting artificial field colors. Boise's blue is not terrible (I don't particularly like it, mind you, but it's not so far off from green that it's a huge distraction to TV viewers or, I imagine, to players), but it's all but impossible to watch an Eastern Washington game on that red field. And if UTSA rolls out a bright orange carpet... well, forget about making it to the fourth quarter without your retinas burning.

    In the end I think it'll be TV watchability that forces a rule, not any real or perceived home field advantage.

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