Top 10 Worst BCS Football Stadiums

College Football’s Top 10 Worst BCS Stadiums

Some college football stadiums hold more than 100,000 fans and are just as state-of-the-art as any you’ll find in the NFL. But others are tiny, run down, shoddy and/or decrepit. Which are the worst venues among BCS conference college football teams? We examine.

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10. L.A. Coliseum (USC)

The Coliseum, which holds 93,607, is one of the country’s iconic sports venues. It has hosted two Olympic Games (1932, 1984), the Super Bowl and World Series. Currently, its primary use is as the home of the powerhouse USC Trojans. But for one of the nation’s premier programs, the Coliseum just lags behind. The stadium opened way back in 1923 and, despite a host of renovations, it’s still stuck in the past. Instead of young Hollywood, the venerable Coliseum is more like a silent film. We have slotted it at No. 10 because, well, it’s still the Coliseum.

9. California Memorial Stadium (California)

Cal’s stadium won’t be on this list once the stadium is done being renovated in time for the 2012 season, but for now, we’ll poke fun at it one last time. The stadium wasn’t just falling apart since it’s been up for nearly 90 years, it was literally crumbling because it was built on the Hayward Fault Line. Yikes. The renovation will upgrade the facility and give it more structural support, placing the Bears at AT&T Park this season (where the San Francisco Giants play). Still, Memorial Stadium is the last place you want to be in an earthquake. And up until the renovation, it was also pretty much the last place you wanted to be for a football game too.

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8. BB&T Field (Wake Forest)

Wake Forest’s BB&T Field, which holds 31,500 fans, has the distinction of being the smallest venue in all the BCS conferences and feels more like a Texas high school field. In 2007, the stadium name was changed from Groves Field after the school and BB&T, an American investment bank, reached a 10-year deal. It makes sense – BB&T is located in Winston-Salem, NC, the home of the Demon Deacons. But the partnership reportedly is part of a larger deal, which seeks to generate funds to renovate the stadium.The school has just over 4,000 undergraduates – small in comparison to other behemoth BCS schools – so the stadium seems to scale for the school. Just not for the ACC.

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7. Martin Stadium (Washington State)

The strangest thing about Martin Stadium has been the reduction in its capacity after a 2006 renovation. It now holds 35,117, more than 2,000 less seats than after a previous renovation in 1979. Needless to say, it’s the smallest stadium, capacity-wise, in the Pac-12. It’s probably better off that way. The Cougars are 5-32 in their last three seasons and haven’t been to a bowl game since 2003. But Martin Stadium certainly does nothing to inspire them. Most of the venue is filled with metal benches and doesn’t have a traditional upper deck.

6. Memorial Stadium (Kansas)

Kansas provides an example of football playing second fiddle to a storied basketball program. Something tells us that Phog Allen Fieldhouse could be triple its size and fans would still pack it to the rafters. The football stadium, on the other hand, holds just over 50,000 fans and doesn’t have the feel of a top-end Big 12 program, or any Big 12 program for that matter. Sure, the Jayhawks have struggled on the gridiron over the years and are trying to build under coach Turner Gill. But Memorial Stadium, a stadium from the 1920s with its open-air, horseshoe-style, needs a shot in the arm.

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1:59 PM on 8/1/2011

Pea Weevil

USN&WR sees it much differently. They rank the Texas schools academically as follows: Rice, UT-Austin, A&M, SMU, Baylor, TCU, Tech, Houston, UNT and UTA. The latter two are 4th tier in their standards while Tech and Houston in their 3rd tier. They rank OU about even with TCU and OK State back in Tier 4 with the geographically named Texas schools.
a poorly constructed list

TCU definitely would have beat on tech pretty bad last year.
Brian Moore

Jack Trice is horrible, big boards or no.

Should be on the list until they tear it down.
MIZ

KU’s stadium definitely belongs on the list. Been there…..trashy. And it’s not my bias towards Missouri in which I obviously have, but really their athletic department desperately needs to dump some money into their stadium. Maybe if their stadium was upgraded they’d have a little more ambition to be competitive in the Big 12.
Roger

I’m an SEC guy and I love watching games at Nippert and Ryan Field. Those places have college football stadium looks. I guess the moron writing this article wants every college football stadium to look like a cookie cutter NFL stadium (a la Ralph Wilson Stadium)? Sorry, but I enjoy the look of all the odd ball college stadiums, many of which are on this list.
Jake

The worst I’ve seen…on the West Coast

1) San Diego State – plays in an outdated NFL stadium. Nothing in Aztec colors and maybe 3,000 fans in the stands, if you’re lucky.

2) Stanford – beautiful campus, smart kids, crappy stadium

3) Boise State – screams “I want to be a big guy”, but still very small time (blue turf is awful on HD).

4) San Jose State – place is held together by 2X4′s and duct tape. But no one notices, because no one goes to the games. Lock your car, bad area of town.
Said

these are some of my favorites. the small stadiums add to the unique atmosphere of college football.
SAL

I love Nippert. It’s cozy, it’s quirky, it’s comfortable…and when it’s packed for a big game, it rocks. Bigger isn’t necessarily better. No way Nippert is the worst BCS stadium. I think Nippert is jewel, and there probably isn’t a stadium better suited for getting reacquainted with your alma mater.

This is a lousy list.
BigUn

Here is an example of an article written by a guy who didn’t take that time to get his B*** on a plane and visit his subjects. He just googled the stadiums and looked at the pictures and then wrote an article.

Wonder why we are in debt up to our A****? We are LAZY
Sooner Nat’l Champs

So what, I think Tech hung 70 pts on TCU a couple years ago.
ASU Ram

Hey TCHS Frog, just so you are educated about Angelo State University…

About ASU:

Mission Statement: Angelo State University, a member of the Texas Tech University System, delivers undergraduate and graduate programs in the liberal arts, sciences, and professional disciplines. In a learning-centered environment distinguished by its integration of teaching, research, creative endeavor, service, and co-curricular experiences, ASU prepares students to be responsible citizens and to have productive careers.

Founded: 1928

President: Dr. Joseph C. Rallo

Affiliation: Texas Tech University System

Location: San Angelo, the center of a West Texas community of 100,000

Campus: 268 acres

Students: 6,856
Anonymous

LOL @ Nippert being listed the worst. This makes this list completely irrelevant.

Nippert is easily one of the best college football atmospheres in the country. Everything about it makes the place unique. The campus location, the closeness of the stands to the field, the surrounding brickwork and architecture…it blows most BCS stadiums out of the water.

These guys do sound like a bunch of NFL loving wannabees that want every stadium to be huge and look the same.
State 08

I can’t believe Martin Stadium and Nippert Stadium made the list. Those are two of the nicest stadiums and football atmopsheres I’ve ever experienced.

These guys that put this list together dont have a clue. They are just basing everything on stadium size and nothing more. If they truly are looking at atmosphere and environment and setting then there is no way either of those two would be anywhere near the 10 worst. They’d be much closer to the 10 best.
BoomerSooner

The first sentence says it all:

“Some college football stadiums hold more than 100,000 fans and are just as state-of-the-art as any you’ll find in the NFL.”

These clowns clearly dont get what college football is all about. The quirkiness, the unique stadiums and environments…That is what makes college football great.

These guys compare everything to state of the art NFL facilities. How stupid. Not wonder this list is so God Awful.
RigatoniCarloni

MIZ – you’ve been playing Kansas at Arrowhead too long. Memorial was upgraded several years ago. It was worthy of being on this list but doesn’t belong here now, IMHO. And I’m pretty sure I’ve been in more stadia than the author based on all of the comments about the info being outdated or simply incorrect.
Joe

UNLV’s Sam Boyd Stadium needs to be included in this list. Sam Boyd is old, out of date, and out in the middle of nowhere. It is clear on the eastern side of the Las Vegas valley, nowhere close to the UNLV campus. It is actually located next to the Las Vegas wash where all the rain and water run off drains into Lake Meade. The stadium does not even have a paved parking lot and fans are forced to tailgate in a dirt lot. There’s no restaurants, bars, shops, or anything remotely cool around the stadium for fans to hang out at. The stadium is empty most of the time, partly because the team is never good, and partly because nobody, including the students want to make the long trek out to the stadium.
Cuse44

I’ve been to 5 Big East football venues (Several games at the Carrier Dome, a few in Hartford, one in Piscataway, one in Louisville and one in Cincy).

Cincy’s stadium and atmosphere blow every other out of the water. I hate to admit it, but the Carrier Dome is the worst of the bunch.

As others have stated, the architecture around Nippert and UC’s campus in general is phenominal. Great fans, great football atmosphere and an overall great experience at UC. The fact that Nippert even made the list is pathetic.

How about actually visiting a few stadiums before you pass judgment next time?
ZZ33254ZZ

I have been to many, many College Stadiums & in no way Nippert close to the worse; in fact, it has been included in many lists of jewels of college stadiums – No one with half of brain can walk through the Cincy campus, into the middle of the campus, surrounded by what many consider to be the greatest collection & concentration of modern architecture in North America, into historic Nippert Stadium, sit down, ORDER A BEER & watch BCS football.
ZZ33254ZZ

Heck the picture of Nippert you published for the article shows Nippert to be a really cool stadium
The Source

It seems the author of this article has never really attended any games at any of these venues.
carnis99

Typical survey. In a similar survey last year, Wake Forest’s stadium was rated in the top 10 in the country. Goes to show surveys can say anything you want if you ask the questions (in)correctly – especially in politics.
trojanhorse

I agree with the comments about Baylor’s Floyd Casey Stadium. I’ve been to college games in at least 60 different stadiums and Baylor’s has the very best sight lines of any stadium I’ve been in. While the neighborhood around the stadium is a little dicey (although not as bad as some others around the country), it’s still a great venue in which to WATCH a game. I’ve been there twice; once my seats were between the 45 and 50 and the other time between the 20 and 25, and the seats closer to the goal line offered just as great a view of the action.
Brent

This list is a joke. I came from an SEC school and have been to most SEC stadiums which rank as some of the very best in the country, but Nippert stadium is one of the most unique stadiums in the nation and is not even close to being one of the worst. Whoever made this list obviously believes that the number of seats equates to the quality of the experience. That is dumb. Nippert gives you an intimate experience unlike any other in college football. You feel as though you are part of the action. The surrounding area is beautiful, especially at night. Go back and watch some games from the 2009 season and listen to the announcers talk about how Nippert feels like an SEC environment. Nippert is one of the few stadiums in all of college football where you get the intimacy of being near the field but you get the environment of a big time college stadium. There is nothing like it.
OkieJoe

RigatoniCarloni-

Putting 25 pleather lazy-boy recliners on the choral risers from Larryville Jr. High does not constitute a renovation. Sad that more people turn out for a track meet at that hole than a football game. When Kansas gets the boot & goes to Conference USA, that joke of a stadium will be exhibit A on why they’re there. What a disgrace to the real universities out there.
WakeFan

This is an absurd list. Just because a stadium is small doesn’t mean its bad. BB&T Field is a great place to watch a game. Good restrooms, concessions, and roomy concourses. There’s a nice new tower with luxury suites in it and a new HD video board is currently under construction.

Also, fwiw, BB&T is a commercial bank.
Joe

This author is obviously a loser and doesn’t deserve to be able to post his uneducated garbage. Do some research you hack. Seriously….have you ever written an original composition before? Time to visit Arby’s to see if you can pick up another shift.