Auburn Football Field Destroyed By Kenny Chesney Concert. Who Cares?

I have seen a few articles today about how beautiful Pat Dye Field looks after this past weekend's Kenny Chesney concert. Much of the uproar came following this tweet by the Auburn Grounds Crew Twitter account...

Before/after pic.twitter.com/yVho8BRf1y

— AU Grounds Crew (@AU_Grounds_Crew) April 26, 2016

At first glance, the response is horror that what is one of the most well-designed and best-looking college football fields in the nation could be that torn apart. And all for a pop-country act!

On further reflection, your response should actually be "who cares?"

Yes, that's right. Who cares?

You see, it's not that big of a deal to re-sod the field. The grounds crew even responded in a tweet a few hours later reassuring folks that all is well.

We will resod at the end of May and have it back to normal. Well worth the experience!

— AU Grounds Crew (@AU_Grounds_Crew) April 26, 2016

It's not like the actual grass in the stadium has history to it. It doesn't stretch all the way back to the days of Shug Jordan and Pat Sullivan. The War Eagle Reader article linked above talks about the re-design done when Pat Dye was the coach. Even still, the sod has been replaced multiple times since then.

It's not like this wasn't known beforehand, either. The ROTC Department was planning our organizational day (i.e. end of year picnic) and a co-worker of mine was told by none other than Gus Malzahn himself when we were researching awesome locations to have the event that the field would look horrible right after the concert and would need to be replaced.

What matters is that Auburn has an awesome grounds crew who consistently is able to get the field looking so pretty no matter how many times you replace the sod.

Sure, it stinks that the field looks like that right now. I'm not a fan of the acts (other than Miranda Lambert) who played in Jordan-Hare Saturday night, but what matters is that they put on a huge concert for a very good cause.

So, media, please don't act like this is a big deal. If you want to make a big deal out of something, then why not point out how Auburn marketed this for a long time as the first concert in Jordan-Hare when there were at least three others before it.

This is as big of an "off season, non-story" as you can get, really. It's so much of an off season, click bait story that I'm writing what may be an even bigger off season, click bait story to tell you why. I don't know that I'm going to survive until September, y'all.

The field will look as amazing as ever come September when Auburn and Clemson kick off the 2016 season. It always does, because Auburn has one of the best grounds crews in the country. War Eagle.