For decades, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish were considered to have such an athletic disadvantage that they purposefully grew the grass in their football stadium to U.S. Open rough height. The long grass was supposed to slow down opposing speed, and it was especially noteworthy when playing against Tony Dorsett during his Heisman Trophy season of 1976 and Reggie Bush when he won the Heisman in 2005.
The ploy was infamous enough that when Notre Dame announced in April 2014 it was taking out its natural grass in favor of a synthetic surface, the Los Angeles Times wrote a story with the following headline: “Notre Dame to install artificial turf, lose tall-grass defense tactic.”
