Home of the 12th Man… Kyle Field

Our #10 Miami Hurricanes are in the college football playoffs this season. In the first round, the Canes travel to College Station, Texas to take on the #7 Texas A&M Aggies at Kyle Field.

Here’s some background on the “field of play”, courtesy of Texas A&M.

Kyle Field - College Station, Texas

Regarded as one of the nation’s most intimidating road venues. Texas A&M’s Kyle Field has been the home of the Aggie football team since 1905.

Over a two-year period, Kyle Field underwent one of the largest and most extensive redevelopment projects in the history of collegiate athletics. The redeveloped Kyle Field features an expanded seating capacity of 102,733, making it one of the five largest stadiums in collegiate football. The $485 million redevelopment featured two phases and made its debut for the 2015 season. The Aggies drew more than 100,000 fans to Kyle Field for all seven games in 2014, including the stadium record of 110,633 for the Ole Miss contest.

Prior to the redevelopment, the most recent major improvement was the $32.9 million north end zone expansion, which was completed in 1999. The formation of the Bernard C. Richardson Zone raised Kyle Field’s capacity to 82,589. “The Zone” opened at full capacity for the first time for the annual Texas A&M-Texas grudge match in 1999 and a then state-record football crowd of 86,128 watched the Aggies tally a hard-fought 20-16 victory over the archrival Longhorns. The stadium record was broken six times since the 1999 game and stood at 90,079 (9-6 win over Nebraska in 2010) prior to the redevelopment.

Kyle Field was named for Edwin Jackson Kyle, who served as Texas A&M’s dean of agriculture and athletic council president. Kyle donated a 400 x 400-foot area of the southern edge of campus that had been assigned to him for horticultural experiments.

The permanent seating on the east and west sides of Kyle Field were added in 1927 and the horseshoe was completed in 1929. The stadium was expanded in 1967 to include two decks of grandstands, and the third decks were added to the east and west sides in 1980. The Aggies played on grass through the 1960s, but A&M became one of the many schools that switched to artificial turf in the early 1970s. Grass returned to Kyle Field in 1996 and the Aggies currently play on grass.

BOTTOM LINE:

Kyle Field is a beautiful and one of the largest stadiums in college football. It’s also home to some of college football’s most passionate fans. They never sit down during the game. Never! It’s an Aggie tradition. Our Canes are honored to play at the home of the 12th Man.

GO CANES!