Chris Smith Field at Kenan Stadium

Chris Smith Field at Kenan Stadium takes its shape from a different time. The black and white photograph shows the concrete stands still under construction, with pieces of timber lying on the grass in the foreground. That unfinished look has stayed with the place. Even when the metal bleachers were finally pulled out in 2018 to make way for chairback seats, the skeleton remains.

The stadium is not just a bowl of seats. It sits inside a ring of trees that close in on the playing area. A clock tower is visible above the roofline in the summer photographs, a quiet landmark for the people who walk from the university campus to the gates. The pitch itself has changed its skin three times. Natural grass was the answer from the first game in 1927 until 2019, when the surface was replaced with artificial turf. The pitch went back to natural grass in 2025.

The capacity has settled at 50,500, a figure that is lower than the peak reached in the middle of the last decade. The record crowd from 1997 against Florida State sits in the past. The ground has also played host to visitors from across the Atlantic, including Chelsea and Manchester City in recent years. The name of the field honours a former player who died from a rare illness, while the stadium itself carries the name of the family who funded its original build. Things came to a head when the decision was made to reduce the size, but the result is a ground that feels closer to the action than it used to be.