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By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
The UNLV football team and the Las Vegas Raiders will host games at Allegiant Stadium on back-to-back days Sept. 17 and 18, but this time the Rebels will play on their preferred artificial turf instead of the Raiders’ grass field.
It wasn’t that way last weekend when UNLV played on the Raiders’ natural turf field Saturday one day after the Raiders defeated the New England Patriots in their final preseason game.
The UNLV Rebels would prefer to play on a synthetic surface, but the Raiders, which are charged with running the domed stadium, had UNLV on Saturday play on natural grass surface used by the Raiders on Friday. The Rebels did just fine, defeating Idaho State Saturday.
The Las Vegas Raiders will be getting a new turf playing field for the regular season after the natural playing surface’s worn condition drew national attention after two soccer games beat up the grass field inside Allegiant Stadium in late July.
The Raiders open the season on the road against the Los Angeles Raiders at SoFi Stadium Sept. 11 and play their home-opener at Allegiant Stadium Sept. 18 after UNLV plays North Texas the day before.
The Raiders plan to have a new grass field by then at their home stadium. Allegiant Stadium workers can install different retractable fields in the venue because they sit on two levels of trays that are 48 inches apart. The Raiders grass field can be removed from the stadium so that it receives sunlight.