ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - The Missouri Tigers football team returned to St. Louis for the first time since 2010, where they impressed St. Louis and 45,085 fans with a 34-27 win against the Memphis Tigers.
While plenty of discussion came from how impressive quarterback Brady Cook and wide receiver Luther Burden looked, another big discussion was the turf.
On social media, plenty of fans took to X, formerly known as Twitter, to express their dismay with how poor the turf at the Dome at America's Center looked. The criticism only mounted after multiple players on Mizzou's side suffered a slew of injuries.
Dome at America's Officials say that despite the criticism, the turf, which is a little over eight years old, was safe and approved for use.
"The turf is definitely not unsafe," said Cat Neville, Explore St. Louis VP of Communications on Total Information A.M., "It was approved by the coaches, by the players, everyone was perfectly fine with the safety and the cushioning on the field."
Neville cited the poor appearance of the field due to the degradation of the lines on the field along with constant movement of rolling the turf in and out of the field.
"This particular turf was originally designed where it had all the markings on the field permanently embedded," said Neville, "The turf has to be rolled in and rolled out and when someone isn't playing a game, it's rolled away. Over the years, the permanent lines got wavy so they had to be taken off."
Neville did say that discussion to replace the turf is under consideration.
"We do acknowledge it has been in use for a number of years and so it is time to replace it," said Neville.