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Heartbreaking news: The Cincinnati Bearcats' black turf was actually a hoax
UPDATE: Apparently this black beauty is being called "social media fun" by the Cincinnati athletic department, who do not actually plan to host Friday's game on the sinister turf. Nothing gold, or in thise case black, can stay.
If you have access to WiFi and logged on at any point during the A.M. hours of Tuesday, October 1st, then you're already painfully aware that "Spooky Season" has officially commenced. Everywhere you look, ordinary, rational people are popping candy corn like Tylenol, posting gifs of that dancing pumpkin guy to every available social media platform, and sprouting giant hairy wolfman legs from beneath their regular-fit jeans. But it's not just your friends and family who have lost their minds, IT'S EVERYONE—a zombie-like contagion spreading down city street and across rolling hills, even to the Cincinnati Bearcats athletic department, who, in an act of seasonal solidarity, stained their entire field pitch black ahead Friday's upcoming hell-in-a-cell cage match against AAC East foes UCF.
We're gonna go out on a limb and call this is the most intimidating college football force since Jadeveon Clowney.
As you've also probably noticed, the black wasn't quite evil enough, with the Bearcats' brain trust outfitting the playing surface with a giant pair of demon eyes set against beautiful red-lit skyline of Cincinnati. You would think that spending 12 hours in a city that thinks putting chili on spaghetti is a good idea would be terrifying enough, but apparently not.
A combination of several different fan suggestions, the Darth Vader-approved turf treatment harkens back to Eastern Washington's Roos Field, nicknamed "The Inferno" for it's red turf, and Boise State's iconic blue gridiron before that. It also takes college football's proud "blackout" tradition to its logical limits, matching the playing surface to the souls of its ravenous, pulsating student body. You really have to applaud the effort, even if Sauron's stronghold does turn to mush under the white hot lights of ESPN on Friday night.
Meanwhile, just up the road the Buckeyes will also be donning their all-black alternates in anticipation of a visit from Michigan State on Saturday and have encouraged their fans to do the same. Needless to say, the whole damn state is going to need an exorcism come Sunday morning.