BYU football: New turf makes Bronco smile

PROVO — With football season just three months away, the field at BYU's LaVell Edwards Stadium is devoid of lines, numbers, logos, hash marks and end zones. Right now, it is simply a pristine, 100-yard sea of verdant, freshly laid grass.

Over the past several months, the field has undergone its first major renovation in nearly three decades. The 28-year-old turf was removed in February and has been replaced in recent weeks with new sod, imported from California. The renovation also involved the installation of a new draining system.

The new grass offers Edwards Stadium — which was built in 1964 and expanded in 1982 — a fresh look.

Cougar coach Bronco Mendenhall enjoys the change.

"It makes me smile. I feel good about the addition and how it will continue to make the stadium, and our program, one of the best in the country," he said. "You'd like everything you're associated with as an organization or as a person to be first-class and of quality. "I don't think there's a person who could walk out there, see it and not say, 'Wow, this is very impressive.' If I were a fan, if I were a former player, if I were a recruit coming to look at what we represent and the quality of the program, the stadium continues — at even a higher level now — to be one of those things you can say, 'This is an amazing place.' "

For Mendenhall — whose team has won 18 consecutive home games, dating back to the start of the 2006 season — Edwards Stadium is not only the venue where the Cougars compete, it's also a hallowed shrine dedicated to the legacy established by past players and coaches.

That explains why, during spring practices in March, when the field was rendered unusable due to the renovation, Mendenhall canceled the school's annual spring game.

"Certainly, there are arguments to have held a spring game and certainly there are those who were disappointed we didn't, and certainly it could have been held elsewhere," he said. "But I'll only play the spring game in our stadium."

In recent years, many observers noted the gradual deterioration of the Edwards Stadium turf. Part of the problem was the emergence of annual bluegrass, a weed that "had crept in and compromised the field," said Roy Peterman, BYU director of grounds maintenance.

A change was probably overdue, considering Edwards Stadium had one of the oldest grass fields in college football.