OT: Kyle Field Expanding to 102,500 Capacity
Texas A&M is adding about 20,000 seats to become the third largest stadium in college football, trailing only Michigan and Penn State. Kyle Field is already known for being extremely loud, so Texas A&M has a very good chance to have the best home field advantage in college football. Its been a good year for them: Moving to the SEC, beating Alabama, Heisman winning QB, now this. They also have a great recruiting class coming in. Texas can't be too happy right now.
Links: http://kylefield.com/
It looks like that will put them at 45 seats more than Neyland Stadium where the Tenn Vols play.
KHOU had its own story on television apparently. Here's the (LINK)
The price tag involves rather a lot of work beyond the addition of seats - it is an extensive renovation. G. Rollie White Coliseum will be torn down in the process and the expanded stadium will have its field moved 18 feet south of its present location, per the story. Some concept images are in the accompanying video.
thinking that it was a desperate move to get out of Texas' shadow and they'd just be stomped in the SEC, but they've surprised me.
Benefitted greatly by Manziel's rise to fame, they really have stepped out of Texas' shadow. I feel like they have an identity other than "The Second Most Popular School in Texas"
102K that's so cute
A&M opens the video on their website by describing how each university has a moment that defines its existence or sees it fall. They then state that the defining moment in the history of Texas A&M University is the remodel of their football stadium. They have fully embraced the culture of the SEC..
Wow. That's really sad.
Has anyone from Michigan athletics ever addressed the idea of another stadium ever expanding to seat more than the Big House? Would we then expand to make sure we continue to have the most in the country?
Ask the Tennessee Volunteers.
Thanks to Fielding Yost, Michigan Stadium grounds has the potential to expand capcity to 200,000. Just the threat alone should deter other schools from trying to pass Michigan's capacity.
How would we start working towards that expansion? Do we wrap around the brick colliseum to cover the north and south end zones, or do we do an outdoor seating vertical end zone expansion similar to what they are doing with Lambeau this year in their S. end zone?
I do like the idea of getting closer to a solid 140,00.
I thought it was more like 140,000.
Still smaller than the Big House. Nothing to see here. Moving on.
I'm a little bit dubious about the wisdom of this. A couple of years ago, they couldn't fill the seats they had. Now they're adding more. While I think that A&M will be better at football through the 10's than they were in the 00's (Fran!) this still feels like extrapolating on a transient to me.
I think the most impressive thing is that they get 30,000 students per game. And they all sit between the endzones, not in the corner or endzone.
They don't sit though. They stand all game. Great place to watch a game.
If only we could pull that off here.
I hope we never act like TAMU fans. No mandatory ballsack grabbing for me.
Well yeah. We don't need to mimick their weirdness, but the way they yell during games would probably help.
Grabbing ballsacks and yelling go hand-in-hand.
It's also nuts that a team like A&M who has really done nothing since the 1930s gets that many people at their games in the first place.
Well, when someone is ranking College Station behind the likes of Lubbock, TX and Stillwater, OK as a destination, maybe there's not really anything better to do on a Saturday afternoon than go to the football stadium no matter how good the team is.
http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/post/_/id/2227/ranking-the-big-12-towns.
It's kind of funny that the author mentions food, then completely omits the best food in town. What I wouldn't give right now for some Layne's chicken fingers...
You lost me at Layne's......
I know, I know, there are allegiances, but as an out of towner I'm cool with just saying that they make damn good chicken in that town, no matter where you get it. Now I am hungry. I could also go for some chicken fried bacon at Sodolak's in Snook...
Haha, just giving you a hard time. I don't actually have a chicken preference. I'd rather hit Fuego or Fargo's (!!!) or Koppe Bridge or even The Chicken (not for the chicken, for beer and burgers). Jeez, I miss the BCS food scene. Has to be one of the most underrated food towns in the country.
I think the Sodalaks in Snook is no more, which is a real tragedy. My advisor used to drive potential grad students out there for lunch. It's about a 15 minute drive further and further into the country, and it was fun to watch them get more and more confused about where we were going. Then we'd get there and old man Sodalak (RIP) would be sitting at the first table by the door chain smoking. We never got any of those grad students to join us, but it was always a hoot.
I know you were. I absolutely agree with you on the food scene. There was a place we went that had some of the best wings I've ever had. Can't remember the name, but it was where Mike Sherman did his radio show. Really unexpected.
That's a damn shame about Sodolak's, if true. It's been about two years since we were last there. That experience must have been priceless with those grad prospects. That is a real strange drive out their, especially if you are trying to find it the first time with a GPS (something which I swear is not possible).
You guys should just post skeet hand motion gifs toward each other instead of qualifying College Station coolness by naming chicken shacks.
I have, literally, no idea what you are talking about.
That sounds like Wings&More.
Although the Sodalak's in Snook was the best, and I think the only one that did deep fried bacon, they still have the Czech-Tex Steakhouse in Bryan. Come to think of it, I could really go for a good chicken fried steak.
Edit: looks like I was confused. The CS location went under, but Snook and Bryan are still open. Another place to visit next time I'm in town.
Yes! Wings & More, that's it! That place was unexpectedly amazing.
...you mean send you into a grease coma.
Always tasted awesome. Always felt like crap 2hrs later.
Gosh, I love the arrogance of some Michigan fans. You realize Southerners can make fun of Michigan too, right? I mean Ann Arbor is located between the wonderful towns of Detroit and Toledo, Ohio. Wow. I mean, those two cities are the most attractive, awesome, and desirable cities to visit and live in. I guess we can also throw Flint in and hey, 2 of the top 5 murder capitals of the US all within an hour drive! Note: In response to MSUDad's comments about Lubbock and College station... don't know why my comment was pushed down here.
Bo said nice try...
That is great for them!
TAM was suppose to expand their stadium to 120K and become the largest stadium in the NCAA. I'm glad they deiced to only go up to 102K. TN may try to pass Michigan again, but I think Michigan will always expand if necessary to keep its lead as the largest football stadium.
I think Tennessee pretty much closed the door on much future expansion (same with Alabama) due to the way they did their last expansion and closed in the entire stadium.
I'm just happy Texas A&M will finally have enough space for their massive amount of oversigned recruits when they come to games.
Yes, they have a little brother complex, but you would too if you had an entire classification of jokes aimed at you. I'm referring to the "Aggie joke" humor subgenre, which I didn't know about until living in Texas. Example: What's the best thing to ever come out of College Station? Highway 6. Did you hear about the Aggie whose dog kept getting hurt while chasing parked cars? The Sparties have no idea how bad it could really get.
To hell with the SEC.
Awe, that's cute. Just 12k to go.
check out these renderings of the new Atlanta stadium proposals, featuring (very late in the video of the renderings (scroll down to #2), Spike Albrecht and your Meeeechigan Wolverines beating Louisville...
http://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2013/5/1/4289310/atlanta-falcons-stadium-concept-art-design
A&M fans use LOUD VOICES and Kyle Field as it is is incredibly loud. Add 20k more fans and reshape the stadium to funnel more noise back on the field is going to result in some unpleasant times for the opposing team's QB.
Dang.. Looks amazing but they better keep it up in the SEC or that'll be a whole lot of empty seats. If they can keep going they way they are, more power to them, but that's a really expensive gamble on the future of their program.