Media, players and staff were still trickling off the Coliseum field after the Trojans' win against the Oregon Ducks, but a crew of about roughly 50 groundskeepers were already working in full-force, turning over the cardinal and gold to millennium blue and new century gold.
With the Rams moving to LA earlier this year, many things had to be taken into account, including the field condition.
The 4 p.m. kickoff game on Saturday meant that the groundskeeping crew was going to have three fewer hours to turn the college football field into an NFL field from the last time they had to do it with a 1 p.m. kickoff against Arizona State.
"The best advantage that we had going into this set of games was the 1 p.m. kickoff times for both teams and the heat. The heat allowed our grass to grow very well which allowed us to mow after the USC game and actually get a lot of paint off of the grass by doing that," said David Grant, director of operations at the Coliseum.
With USC and the Los Angeles Rams having two back-to-back weeks, one being on Oct. 8 and 9 and the other one being just this past weekend, groundskeepers knew that the field was a worrisome topic.
Niki Angleton, business developer at the Coliseum, said have they would have extra security, so that the second the game was over, they would be able to start turning over the field immediately.
However, this isn't the first time the Coliseum has hosted more than two teams. Between 1958-1961, the stadium hosted up to five games in one weekend.
Robert Courtney, better known as Mr. Coliseum, is a tour guide at the stadium who knows the history of the place from head-to-toe.
"People have asked how these two teams will be able to share the same field, let's look back to 1958 when the Dodgers were playing baseball here along with the UCLA Bruin football team, the Trojan football team and of course the Los Angeles Rams," Courtney said. "In 1958, you could have as many as four major sporting events on this field in September on a weekend, requiring multiple field changes within a 36-hour period."
In 1959, a football game between USC and Ohio State was played at the Coliseum. An hour after the game's completion, the first World Series game in California was also played.
Grant knew having two teams meant there were going to be some changes, so the Coliseum started preparing for the back-to-back weeks earlier this year.
"In terms of field conditions, we made strategic choices that were designed to maximize our ability to change over the field between both teams," Grant said. "That work actually started back in April when we started looking at paint types and application types."
Before switching to the new system, the field crew used to spray-paint the words on the field. With the new system, the crew hand-paints the entire field with rollers, which helps "to keep the paint out of the soil layer of the turf and limit the paint to the blade of the grass" making it a much better long-term solution.
Grant credited the 1 p.m. kickoff for the two teams and the heat for making the transition of the field an easy process in the first back-to-back weekend – that process wasn't necessarily the same this past weekend as the USC hash marks from Saturday's game were clearly visible at the Rams-Panthers game, per LA Times report.
Joe Furrin, Coliseum general manager, told LA Times' Mike DiGiovanna, that Mother Nature was against them – there was fog up until 9 a.m., making the painting process difficult and nearly impossible. . Normally they use two to three coats to paint the field, but they had to stick with one coat on Saturday since the field did not dry in time.
Grant did express his concern after the October game stating their biggest challenge when painting the field overnight, is the dew that sets in.
"Painting wet grass is nearly impossible, so we had to work very hard to fight the dew that was setting in on the field," Grant said. "We brought in over 30 big floor fans to keep air moving over the areas that we needed to paint so that they would dry."
Since the Trojans had an away game and bye week after that game and the Rams had two away games after the game against the Buffalo Bills, the Coliseum did not have another game until the Thursday night game with USC facing the California Bears on Oct. 27. The field crew took advantage of the two-and-a-half week break and were able to go through the process of replacing grass that they had planned back in April.
The possibility of turf has been a topic of conversation but Angleton noted that players and coaches are always impressed by the quality of the field and that it would be ideal to keep real grass.
"We've tried a few different types and they were able to determine which ones work the best with our weather and the maintenance schedule that we have here," Angleton said. "So we did our homework a little bit as to how we will be the best prepared for our scenario, and I think the field is probably going to be the hallmark for this whole thing."
Angleton said they would ultimately do what was best for the Rams and the Trojans and possibly the Chargers, since the team from San Diego is still open to moving to LA and sharing the Coliseum, at least until the Jan. 2017 deadline.
Election Night also opened up the door to a possible third tenant in the Coliseum, as the ballot-measure to build a new stadium in San Diego was shut down by local voters.
Annenberg Media