VALDOSTA — Saturday's national semifinal contest between Valdosta State and MSU-Mankato will be played on a natural playing surface.
It will be just the second time this season the Blazers will play on a natural field, as 11 of Valdosta State's 12 games this season have been played on artificial field turf.
The Blazers' only other time playing on natural grass this season was Oct. 6 at West Georgia. They won the game 42-6.
Despite temperatures in Mankato being projected to be in the mid-30's on Saturday and a 30 percent chance of snow being forecast for Friday, the Blazers are not concerned about the playing surface for Saturday's game.
"It looks great," Valdosta State head coach David Dean said. "It's nice and green."
Dean said several Blazer players actually thought the playing field at Mankato's Blakeslee Stadium was an artificial surface, when watching game film.
"Our guys were looking at film and I told them it was natural grass and they all thought I was lying to them," Dean said. "They all thought it was a turf field. It looks that good. It looks like they take good care of it and it is well-manicured. So I think it is going to be a good, fast surface."
Despite the game being played on a natural field surface, the Blazers will not wear their black pants, which they wore at West Georgia. When the Blazers unveiled their new uniforms in August, it was announced they would wear white pants on the road on articifial surfaces, but black pants on natural grass.
That isn't the case this weekend.
"The guys said they wanted to wear white-on-white," Dean said.
— Follow me on Twitter at @Ed_Hooper.
