Colorado’s Folsom Field to get artificial turf before 2025 season

Folsom Field is set to undergo a major chance this summer. According to Brian Howell of the Daily Camera, Colorado will lay down artificial turf before the start of the 2025 college football season.

The program has played on a grass surface since 1998. Now, AstroTurf is set to begin installation beginning on May 26, and is expected to be completed before the start of July as Folsom Field is playing host to three Phish concerts during the first week of July.

Having the project completed before the end of the summer is a priority for the decision-makers at Folsom Field, as the prospect of non-football events inside the stadium throughout the fall played a role in the timing of the construction. With the previous grass field, concerts and other events were limited to the spring and early summer as to help keep the playing field intact for the Buffaloes to play on.

“I think putting turf down there gives us flexibility, certainly with the change in the College Football Playoff,” CU athletic director Rick George told BuffZone, via the Daily Camera. “Being a northern school, you don’t grow grass after October, and having a game in December [for the CFP] was a big part of that consideration. Plus, it gives us another field that we can practice on daily that will benefit our football program.”

George noted that Colorado is one of the last major college football programs in the region to not transition to artificial turf. Nearly 70% of all Division I college football programs utilized artificial turf lst season, but is a costly operation. According to the Daily Camera’s report, the project could cost the Buffaloes up to $1 million which will feature Colorado’s ‘Ralphie’ logo on the 50-yard-line, Big 12 logos on opposite hash marks, as well as the word ‘Buffaloes’ in each endzone.

This will not be the first time that Colorado will play on artifical turf during the 101 years of football played at the venue. Beginning in 1971 and continuing through 1998, multiple atricifial turf fields have been layed down at Folsom Field.

“I think AstroTurf has improved a lot over the last 15-20 years,” George said. “We think it’s a really good surface for us to play on, and particularly as we get into late November and potentially hosting [playoff games] in December. It just makes a lot of sense to do that.”

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