danefan

To this day, I don't understand is why the fundraising we do is so secret.

That is a retaining wall which holds up the grass berm. That will be grass and will have a walkway that goes all the way around.

Lots of what looks like sand being dumped on the visitors side. That's really the last unknown piece of this puzzle. What did they end up choosing for capacity and look on the visitors side?

Agreed. Especially on funding.

This situation is no different then what happened with CUSA and the former Big East. Sure, the CAA isn't what it was 2 years ago. Either is the former Big East. But its a domino effect. Should we wait for SBU or someone else in the AEC to jump ship? If we go to the CAA it is because its a preemptive move. The UMass-Lowell acquisition solidified the AEC's role in Northeast Athletics - the spot for Northeast Publics to move up from DII and grow. Well guess what, we're no longer in that phase of our history. Its time for us to move on since the America East appears to be unwilling to evolve - their choice.

I'm not sure I see the wide lines you're referencing. The 20's are supposed to have purple accent lines and they are putting "NFL style" numbers on the yard lines which I think will make a big difference. I thought most of that work would have been built into the turf and not painted on, but it appears they do that afterwards. I'd wait and see what the final product looks like with all the graphics. As I said earlier though, I am dissapointed in how much room there is between the sidelines and the first row of seats. The plans call for 15ft between the soccer sidelines and the stands. That seems excessive to me and will definitely hurt the football gameday experience. But it may have been necessary for other things. Maybe for Lax? Does there need to be some distance to protect fans from errant balls?

The CAA is a definite step up from AEast all the way around. The question is whether its a large enough step up to really make a differnece for the University at Albany as a whole. Changing conferences is not an athletic decision alone. There are definitely universities in the CAA that I would like to see us associate with. Delaware William & Mary Drexel Northeastern All very good academic institutions.

What does everyone think about a move to teh CAA without SBU? I'm OK as long as it means we're making a substantial increase in our committment to athletics. A move for the sake of moving isn't worth it.

Prob same as SBU.

Green turf that has outside soccer lines as well as the player boxes for football.

Agreed. Not complaining - just pointing out a slight negative.

The one thing that does kind of stink is how large the sideline areas are going to be because of the soccer pitch size. It will take a little bit away from the spectator experience being that far away from the benches and the sideline. Hopefully the pitch on the seats is steap enough for everyone to get really good views though.

Cam is back up as of 3:30! That yellow is brigh without the lettering painted in it!

I wish the webcam was in 10 or 15 min increments instead of 30!

Thanks Brutus. I never thought I'd be so excited to watch turf get put down.

Of course they're starting the turf in the North endzone which is blocked by those huge piles of dirt!

There is a tremendous amount of dirt being spread as well today. I suspect they want to try and get the grass down on the hill and surrounding areas as soon as possible to take advantage of good growing season.

Looks to me like rolls of turf in the white plastic being placed at the Southwest corner.

There is a large white tractor trailer that may contain rolls of something. Tough to see in the zoom though. There is also a generator down in the Southwest corner of the field that wasn't there yesterday.

Looks like my question was answered as they put up a new I-beam that is longer than the one they took down. Must have been the wrong length to start.

What did you expect after reading the introductory article? Siena love fest.

I noticed something interesting this morning - they actually took down some fo the steel supports for the upper level. The end sections on both sides. If you use the time lapse feature of the webcam you can see there were I-beams running the full lenght last week. Now they're gone at the ends. I wonder if they just needed to take them out to have better access to the upper level? Or if this is some kind of prep for the upper deck? Seems odd to put up steel and then take it down.

I believe the turf design is as shown in the stadium map above. The seating is 8500 including the berm.

The lights going up had a tremendous visual impact. The turf will be exponentially impactful. The next huge step is the upper deck. I'm really also very very curious to see what the away side will look like. If the seat map is any indication, it will run 10-10. I would be surprised if it did, but it would be nice.

Maysonet is a heck of a running back. I really think he'll be an NFL star. They have another great RB that we'll see this year - Marcus Coker. he's a transfer from Iowa and rushed for over 1400 yards in the Big Ten. He played well last year for SBU and rushed for 1000 even though he was really the backup to Maysonet. Coker is a beast.