SDSU’s Long Says Boise Needs to Get Rid Smurf Turf at BetLM

SDSU’s Long Says Boise Needs to Get Rid Smurf Turf

Just four months into his tenure as San Diego State’s head coach, Rocky Long has decided to take aim at the newest — and arguably biggest — fish in the Moun­tain West Conference’s pond.

Specif­i­cally, Long, not one to ever really put teeth to tongue, is call­ing out the Smurf Turf.

Speak­ing on the conference’s spring coaches tele­con­fer­ence, Long lauded the addi­tion of Boise State to the league this year.  And then, of course, decided to fire a shot across their famed — or infa­mous in Long’s case — blue turf bow.

“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.”

Long said play­ers “track the ball dif­fer­ently” on the blue turf, par­tic­u­larly since Boise State tra­di­tion­ally wears all-blue uni­forms on the blue turf.

The blue turf was installed in 1986, osten­si­bly to gar­ner atten­tion for what was, suf­fice to say, an under-the-radar foot­ball pro­gram.  Since 2000, as noted by the Idaho States­man, the Bron­cos are 69–2 at home games played on the Smur­fish sur­face, although the tal­ent level of the play­ers on the field and the qual­ity of the coach­ing staffs on the side­lines likely has more to do with it than does the “unique” hue.

Whether or not the blue turf pro­vides BSU with an advan­tage — we tend to think of these types of com­plaints as excuses com­ing from over­matched teams/coaches — it might be time for the school to ditch the gim­mick.  The Bron­cos have proven over the past few years that they belong on the same (green) field as every other major Div. 1-A pro­gram, and they’re beyond the point where they need the blue turf to draw atten­tion to themselves.

Inci­den­tally, Long won’t be forced to deal with the “unfair­ness” wrought by Boise’s blue play­ing sur­face this year as his Aztecs will host the Bron­cos in November.

Related Posts:

• Boise State Offense Not Up to Snuff in Spring Game
• Boise State to Appeal NCAA Sanc­tions. And, Hey, Good Luck With That, Broncos.
• NCAA Bas­ket­ball Bet­ting Favorite Utah State Tops Boise State
• NCAA Foot­ball Bet­ting: Boise State Downs Utah
• NCAA Foot­ball Bet­ting: Boise State Top­ples Louisiana Tech

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