CHAMPAIGN – Ron Turner doesn't claim to be a master gardener, but he knows when grass doesn't look right.

After returning from a family vacation in early August, Turner decided to check out the area east of Memorial Stadium. The grass didn't look right.

"I expected it to be in great shape," Turner said.

How did it look?

"Terrible," Turner said.

Uneven ground and dead spots were Turner's biggest concerns. The Illinois grounds crew went to work.

They brought in dirt and sod to try to fix the problems. The crew ran out of time.

"It was a lot of small things that occurred," said Allan Heinze, UI director of athletic facilities. "As a result, we brought in some sod to correct the situation. We had to turn the water off in order to put the sod down. In doing that, the field dried out."

When the team returned to campus Tuesday from its Rantoul training camp, its practice fields weren't ready. That forced a move to the Division of Campus Recreation playfield multiplex at First Street and Stadium Drive.

The team practiced there the rest of the week.

"I wasn't real happy, no," Turner said. "It's a little more of an inconvenience to walk over here and do all that."

Heavy traffic raced by the fields during the practices. On Wednesday, the Illinois players seemed distracted. Later in the week, Turner said, the Illini stopped paying attention to the joggers and the honking cars.

A little adversity might help his team down the road, Turner said.

"I told our players, 'I don't care if we have to go out in a parking lot and paint some stripes on it, let's go out and get something done. Don't worry about things you don't control,' " Turner said. "It's out of their control. You've got to make adjustments. You get ready for a game, and there's going to be distractions. The bus may break down, something may happen. You can't worry about that. When you show up, you go play."

Turner was happy to have somewhere to practice. When he realized his own fields weren't playable, he phoned Gary Miller, associate director of campus recreation.

"They've got very nice fields here," Turner said. "I called Gary Miller and told him the situation. I said, 'We need to get you over to work on our fields.' "

If needed, the campus recreation fields are available to the football team again this week. But Turner said Friday he hoped to get back to his own place Monday.

Heinze said the practice fields need major renovations.

"Most fields have a crown on them," Heinze said. "Those fields have been used over the years and years, so there is no crown. Matter of fact, there's a dip in them."

Water settles in the dips, causing more problems. If Heinze brings in dirt to fill the holes, it creates trouble somewhere else.

Heinze said the fields can be fixed two ways. First, mounds and mounds of dirt could be brought in to crown the fields, which would provide a gentle slope from the middle to the sidelines and help drainage. Or, Illinois could put in an elaborate irrigation system that would allow the fields to be flat. That would take significant trenching, Heinze said.

Renovations are being delayed by the inevitable building of an indoor practice facility. The proposed site is at the north end of the current practice fields.

Heinze doesn't want to fix the fields and then see them wrecked two years later during the construction of the practice facility.

"It's like putting down blacktop and then coming back later on to put in the sewer line," Heinze said. "One impacts the other."

The fields weren't in good shape when Heinze came to Illinois almost four years ago. On football Saturdays, cars parked on the fields. Fans would have their tailgate parties and then dump the used charcoal.

"Once in awhile we'd have a broken glass," Heinze said. "It was just not a good situation for a Division I football team."

He got the parking moved away, but the fields haven't had any major work since. Heinze expects to do some of the repairs next spring.