College Football

Kyle Field expansion: Texas A&M stadium to be biggest in Texas, SEC

Kyle Field will be the biggest stadium in the SEC, and will somehow be engineered to be even louder than its current setup.

By Rodger Sherman May 1, 2013, 5:39pm EDT

Update: Texas A&M's site with all the details is live, featuring a video proclaiming that the renovations will make the stadium the finest in the land. The renovations will take place in two phases, beginning in November 2013 and November 2014, with the stadium reopening in August 2015. The $450 million renovation won't see the stadium miss any regular season action. The new Kyle Field will seat 102,500, just about 50 more than Tennessee's Neyland Stadium for the title of biggest in the SEC.

Here's the video:

Here are some pictures, taken from the school's site:

Kyle Field will be the biggest stadium in the SEC, per renovation plans revealed to Texas A&M's Board of Regents in a video before a press conference announcing the upgrades. Good Bull Hunting had all the details on the moves that will make the Hate Barn an even more imposing environment for opposing teams, along with images from KBTX's Steve Fullhart's twitter.

The stadium will add at least 20,000 seats to expand to "over 102,000," boasting the largest capacity in the SEC and in the state of Texas. Tennessee's Neyland Stadium seats 102,455 to make it the third largest in college football, so renovated Kyle Field will apparently be slightly bigger than that. It will also be bigger than Texas' Darrell K. Royal Stadium, which "only" seats 100,119, another way for the Aggies to one-up the Longhorns. Of course, capacity isn't much of an issue for Aggies fans, who have crammed as many as 90,000 in Kyle Field's current capacity.

There will be a new limestone outside, and the field will be lowered to -- get this -- increase fan noise, which has never been much of an issue at A&M. And the stadium will add 12 maroon lights for when the team wins games.

No matter how big it is, the stadium will never be entirely full: 12 seats will always be left empty to remember Texas A&M community members who died in the 1999 bonfire accident as well as others.