SDSU to put new turf in at Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium

BROOKINGS – Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium will have a new playing surface this upcoming season as new turf is being installed in the coming weeks.

It will be the first time that new turf will be placed since the stadium opened in 2016. SDSU Senior Associate Athletic Director of Facilities and Operations Jeff Holm said they planned to change out the turf after 10 years.

“If you talk with turf companies, they’ll likely say [turf lasts] anywhere from eight to 12 years,” Holm said. “… We’ve had three large concerts on it, and even though we put floor protection down, there is some wear on that. When we host playoff games into what the standard snow season would be, and you push snow off of the field as many times as we have, that tends to be a little wear and tear on our base.

“Before our baseball and our softball teams got turf on their field, they would practice out there in February, whenever we could get snow off of there. So there’s been a fair amount of wear on it. We just thought [the turf] was getting tired.”

The turf will be the exact same material as the one that was placed in 2016. It’s astro turf that is bio preferred, which means it has soy based product in the backing that holds the fibers in.

There will be one or two small differences in the design of the field. The Jackrabbit will still be in the middle of the field and the blue and yellow checkerboard will be in the end zones. Holm said they thought about changing a lot of things but landed on one difference that people might not even notice.

“We talked about a lot of different things and landed on keeping it pretty much the same. People will see it when it’s in, but we added kind of a blue border around the field, outside of the coaches or outside of the players boxes. It almost mirrors a little bit of what First Bank and Trust arena is with the blue side lines,” Holm said.

Holm said the cost of the project was under $1 million and it was cheaper than when they first put the turf into the stadium because they already have the under layer put in and that will be fairly unchanged.

Previous to the opening of Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium, Coughlin-Alumni Stadium used natural grass as its playing surface. Holm said the turf has been a lot easier to maintain, especially with SDSU playing in the FCS Playoffs every season since DJDS opened.

“There’s certainly some maintenance that goes with it, and we have the proper machines to do that. … But it is much, much easier and less time consuming than a natural grass surface. For example, Brookings High School plays games here, and if we were to have a rain event during a Brookings High School game, then the next day would be really difficult for us to get a [natural grass] surface in a good, playable condition. So it’s helped tremendously with that. And in snow events, removing snow from a natural grass surface is a little bit more delicate than removing snow from an artificial turf surface,” Holm said.

SDSU put turf on its baseball and softball fields last year and has had turf inside the Sanford Jackrabbit Athletic Complex since 2014. Holm said he thinks they will not have to change the turf inside the SJAC for another four or five years because it is inside.

“Much of the wear and tear of artificial turf comes from the elements. The sun, the rain, the snow, the wince, you know, dirt and debris. Indoor turf doesn’t see that and it tends to last longer. So, our indoor turf still looks pretty good and I would imagine that we can get four or five more years out of it,” Holm said.

All of the old turf has been removed and Holm said they hope to start laying the new turf down at the end of this week or the beginning of next week.

The old turf will be auctioned off at the Jackrabbit Scholarship Auction on May 2 at the SJAC. Holm said all of the beads that are in the old turf will be taken out, so the surface cannot be used again for another athletic competition. He said there will be plenty of options at the auction, including pieces of the checkerboard end zone.

SDSU is scheduled to play its first game on the new turf on Sept. 12 against New Haven.