Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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UNDER THE DOME Stadium Expansion, Playing Surface Update Notre Dame will decide on a playing surface for the 2014 football season in the next 60 days and could finalize plans on the stadium expansion as soon as the third weekend of January when the university's Board of Trustees convene for a meeting, athletics director Jack Swarbrick told Blue & Gold Illustrated in an exclusive interview Dec. 19. Although the potential for a video board is included in the stadium expansion discussions, the decision of whether or not to continue with grass as the Notre Dame Stadium playing surface is independent of those plans. "The [stadium expansion] process has been phenomenal because it's involved so many elements of the university," said Swarbrick, who added that fundraising would come from Notre Dame's development office — which is the case with all such projects. "I shouldn't guess at the number, but there are more than 100 people involved representing academic units, the administration, student affairs, athletics, all involved in this and it's been really rewarding. It's been really fun to work on the project that way because as much as you'd like there to be a lot of projects that touch all elements of the university, there aren't a lot of them. From that perspective, it couldn't have been better. "On a substantive basis, we made great progress refining plans, thinking more about what the elements are. It will be discussed with the trustees at the January board meeting. Assuming that people are comfortable with it following that meeting, that will probably be the point in time where we start to fundraise for it." Swarbrick said the field surface will be addressed sepa- The 2013 season might mark the final camrately, as he admits it "[hasn't] been okay" in two of the paign in which Notre Dame Stadium feapast three seasons. He provided two options that the tures grass as its playing surface. PHOTO BY BILL PANZICA university is considering. "We are now in the process of evaluating our options both to go in and tear that thing down to the very, very subsoil and build it back up and stay with grass, or go to a synthetic surface," he said. "We're sort of in the middle of that evaluation right now. … Whichever we're going to do when you come out of the winter, you've got to be prepared to execute on, whether we're completely rebuilding the field as a grass field or doing a synthetic field, probably have to make that decision in the next 60 days so we can implement it come March 1st or April 1st." A system similar to that of the Green Bay Packers' — which uses a surface that combines natural grass and synthetic blades — will not be used because of its cost, Swarbrick said. "The Packers' system is really interesting. It seems to work very well for them, but it's very expensive," he said. "You're essentially creating a growth environment throughout the fall in this part of the country. You go online and see a picture of their system covering the field and it's a massive undertaking. That's probably not an expense that makes sense for us. Probably not where I'd put our resources."