Coach Chuck Amato described N.C. State’s new addition in the North End Zone as “better than great.”
And his players agreed with his assessment of the project that added approximately 7,100 permanent seats to the North End Zone, now called called “The Red Zone.” It will replace the Wolfpack’s A.E. Finley Fieldhouse, which had been a fixture in Carter-Finley Stadium since the stadium opened 1966. A modified fieldhouse will be under the seats, though, as locker rooms, training rooms and equipment rooms will make their home under the new seating area.
Sophomore running back Toney Baker said the addition to Carter-Finley makes the stadium look like one of the best in the country.
“It’s fabulous, it looks great. It looks like a real big-time stadium now,” Baker said. “There will be a lot of noise in that stadium — it’s all tightened up, and it’s looking good. I’m excited to be a part of it.”
Because the stadium is now a bowl, redshirt junior quarterback Marcus Stone said it should be even louder than before.
But he said Carter-Finley has always brought more noise than he could have imagined.
“Carter-Finley always surprises me,” Stone said. “But now we are sitting closer to 60,000 people, so it’s really going to be electrifying.”
However, the stadium will not be officially complete by game time. Ray Brincefield, assistant athletic director for facilities, said the North End Zone “will be ready by Friday,” but he said there is a difference between “something being ready and something being complete.”
He said signs still need to be put up and that there is some cleaning that needs to be done before the game, but it might take a little more time before everything is officially completed.
“We expected this to be close to the final product,” Brincefield said. “But we are further along than we thought. We are ready to use it, but like I said, that’s different from it being perfectly ready.”
Matias La Serna, a senior in environmental design in architecture, said “The Red Zone,” like the other additions to the stadium since 2001, make the stadium more intimidating for the visiting team.
“I think it will make it a louder game day atmosphere,” La Serna said. “It’ll be more intimidating for opposing teams. Recruits will really like that.”
He added the recent additions now make Carter-Finley the top college football facility in North Carolina.
“It’s not going to be Neyland [University of Tennessee’s stadium] or Gainesville [University of Florida], but it’s going be the best collegiate atmosphere in the state,” La Serna said.
And Kate Luckadoo, a junior in communication, said the school has done a great deal to make its stadiums top-notch.
She said people who travel to State from other schools leave Raleigh impressed with what the school has done to its facilities.
“As far as the athletic facilities go, I think that N.C. State has made a great effort to keep our facilities very modern and up-to-date,” Luckadoo said.
“I know that we impress a great deal of not only NCSU fans, but people traveling from other schools, as well, with how beautiful our buildings and fields are and how much pride our university takes in maintaining them.”
Not only will it impress, but it will also allow more people to attend the games — something redshirt senior linebacker Patrick Lowery said is a huge plus because of the number of people who try to get tickets to the games.
“It’s going to make the stadium that much louder,” Lowery said. “This is cool because now more Wolfpack fans can get in.”