The field was brand new prior to yesterday's Canes game but couldn't even handle pregame warmups for that game. I posted that in the game thread. The engineers were guaranteed to botch some aspects of the patchwork. The field condition assumptions just happened to be what they missed badly on.
I'm sure the brief rain prior to kickoff today really contributed to how quickly the field gave way. I didn't think it would suffer as badly as it did. By late game today you never would have guessed the field was new.
And now the Canes play at home each of the next two weeks. There's no rest for this field. I'm sure the turf will be replaced at least once more this season.
The top international soccer teams despise field turf. That really limits Ross' options. He likely has to give up the major soccer matches if he installs field turf. Check the comments after the 2015 Women's World Cup, which was held in Canada and most of the sites used field turf. It was considered an experiment, and one that failed. Recovery time was a huge issue. The field turf placed so much stress on legs and ankles that players simply weren't ready to play again 3-4 days later. Alex Morgan had some very pointed comments on the issue. Prior to the tournament there was even a lawsuit against FIFA for allowing a major event on field turf but it was quietly dropped since players were advised not to make waves.
Granted, an occasional friendly on field turf is not as taxing as an elongated tournament. But nobody wants to risk an international superstar on field turf. There have been instances at Gillette and elsewhere in which grass was briefly replaced over field turf for soccer. That could be an option at Hard Rock. But given the known problems of the field holding up for even one game under best conditions I don't see how it't attractive when field turf is underneath.
It's amazing how much the roof has impacted the field conditions. When I look back at some of the 2015 games like Miami/Nebraska it's unbelievable how fast and firm and pretty the turf was. That was by far my favorite season at this stadium because the corners of the upper deck had been removed to make way for the video screens a year later. Not only was there more air flow at my low upper deck seat than ever before but obviously the additional sunlight through those gaps really benefitted the grass as well.
