Davis Wade Stadium has been used by Mississippi State since 1914; it replaced Hardy Field as their on-campus track and football field.

Overall, NC State has a record of 1-1 at this field, winning once in 1931 as Southern Conference mates, and losing once in a non-conference matchup in 2021. Additionally, both teams agreed to the mutual cancelation of a game which had been scheduled in 1929. The 32,816 days (nearly 90 years) between trips to Davis Wade Stadium is by far the longest length between matches at one venue in NC State history; the next closest gap is the nearly 62 years between trips to Bobby Dodd Stadium from 1922-1984.

  * Non-conference games

Scott Field opened in 1914 as New Athletic Field after their original on-campus venue, Hardy Field -- which opened in 1905 -- became increasingly outmoded for their football needs* [1]. The creation of Scott Field was largely prompted by Athletic Director W. D. Chadwick, who heavily incentivized on-campus athletics, even to the detriment of financial compensation [2]. Though Chadwick was said to generally prefer on-campus athletics in general, he was also likely motivated by the 1911 Jackson grandstand collapse. The new stadium was opened ahead of the 1914 football season, hosting its first game on October 2nd; a torrential downpour muddied the grounds so greatly that only 3 quarters were played against Alabama's Marion Military Academy before the lopsided 53-0 contest was called off in favor of the Aggies [3] [4].

In 1928, the stadium was finally enlarged -- the main grandstand was expanded by 3,000 seats, and approximately 3,000 more temporary stands were added along the east side of the field ahead of their game against Alabama [3] [6]. Even once 3,600 more seats were added on the west side of the field (to match that of the east), total seating was widely viewed to be sub-10,000. To this point, the stadium was of entirely wood construction [7].

That all changed in 1934, with the arrival of George Duke Humphrey. The 1930s happened to be a period of great success on the gridiron for the Maroons, making a national name for themselves as they left the Southern Conference for the nascent Southeastern Conference (SEC) and hired successful Army coach Ralph Sasse, whose nationally-relevant former team they took down 13-7 in his first year, to guide their football team.

Humphrey coupled their athletic success with Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration (WPA) funding to complete a $70,000 (nearly $1.6 million in 2024) project where the old west bleachers were replaced with an 8,000-person concrete and steel stand, while the old stands were moved to the endzone and reinforced with bricks, bumping the capacity to 26,000 persons. For his work in expanding the stadium, the venue was renamed Duke Humphrey Stadium, though the name doesn't seem to have stuck very long: it was used only about a dozen times in extant digitized papers from 1937 to 1983, the last instance I've found of the name. Plans to expand by another 11,000 seats and add athletic offices below the stadium the following season appear to have fallen through [3] [8].

That expansion was largely realized in 1947 under the successful watch of head football coach Allyn McKeen. The west concrete stands were enlarged to hold 15,000 persons, while the east side was outfitted with a concrete stand fit to hold 12,000. Another 5,000 seats were added to the endzone, bringing total capacity to 32,000. Work was completed over the course of the 1947 season in order that the expansions be completed in time for the Egg Bowl, between the Bulldogs and Ole Miss; the Rebels topped the home team 33-14 [3] [9]. At some point, the capacity began to be widely reported as 35,000, perhaps due to construction of bleachers in the endzones. The destruction of those endzone structures in 1982-1983 lowered capacity to just 32,000, giving Mississippi State the lowest on-campus venue capacity in the SEC [3].

Lighting was another area of stadium improvements that came and went. Temporary lighting for night practices had been brought in as early as 1933, and was improved enough to convince Southwestern (now Rhodes College) to play a night game on October 27th, with kickoff slated for 7 PM. Postgame reports are surprisingly mum on the game's nocturnal nature, and though a handful more were scheduled (games against both Howard -- now Samford -- and Millsaps were played in 1935, but no more found in a quick search), the lights appear to have fallen by the wayside within a handful of years [1] [10]. Despite discussions of adding lights anew in 1961 and 1974, arcs were not again installed until the 1982 expansion [11].

Little work of note was done to the stadium from 1947 to 1982 as the state focused on improvements to Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium. As Scott Field fell behind, the Bulldogs would play as many as six "home" games in Jackson per season. There were several inadequacies with this arrangement, not the least of which was the 4+ hour round trip drive to Jackson and back. In response, Athletic Director Carl Maddox initiated a move to improve Scott Field. "I've always felt the college game belongs on campus," said Maddox. "And besides, it's not really right to make our students drive all the way to Jackson for home games." In addition to improved press boxes, a scoreboard, and lighting, the venue was enlarged by 14,400 seats to a capacity of nearly 47,000 by adding a 10,400 person upper deck on the west side of the stadium, while 4,000 seats were added to the east side [3] [12].

Work on the $7.2 million (nearly $23 million in 2024) addition was delayed before it could ever start after every bid received came in over-budget. About 4,000 seats were subtracted from the west side stands, pushing back the bidding process into March once plans were re-drawn. Work, which started in May 1984, was expected to continue throughout the 1984 season with hopes of being complete by 1985, however, construction fell further behind due to inclimate weather. It became a race against the clock to get the stadium as close to ready as possible ahead of their home opener against Arkansas State, with football players even donning hard hats and steel toes to help get things ready.

In the end, the field was brought to a "functional condition," with crews skipping construction on the upper deck and elements of the press box (such as the front glass, and the elevator) in lieu of installing the new lighting systems, priority seating, and a new scoreboard. Crews put in 1,900 hours of overtime in one week alone as they worked 24 hours, 7 days a week to get the stadium ready. Seating was estimated at about 33-35,000 a few weeks out, and the restrooms and concessions improvements also lagged well behind schedule. Even as the 1985 football season drew to a close, work lingered on. Despite minor efforts looming through the summer of 1986, the expansion to a 40,573-seat venue was essentially completed ahead of the 1986 season [3] [13].

The stadium remained largely unchanged through the close of the 20th century besides the construction of the M-Club Building in the south endzone and the implementation of a new Jumbotron in 1997. The next phase of major renovations was set in motion in 1999, after aggressive renovation projects throughout the SEC had once again left Scott Field the smallest venue in the conference. Ground broke on the $22.6 million (over $41 million in 2024) expansion on June 16th, 2000 with the project expected to raise the capacity to 52,000 seats by adding skyboxes and club level seating, as well as additional upper deck seating on the east side of the stadium. Once work was complete, the stadium boasted a 55,000-person capacity by the 2002 football season after seating just 45,286 during the 2001 season as construction progressed. Thanks to donations from AFLAC co-founder Davis Wade, the venue was renamed Davis Wade Stadium at Scott Field in his honor [3] [14].

The next major renovations came in 2014, largely via improvements to the stadium's north endzone, adding over 7,000 grandstand seats and 22 suites, in addition to other improvements, including concessions and restrooms upgrades. The 2-year project was completed without interruption to the football team and was the most recent major work to the venue [3] [15].

* A multi-use athletic venue located several hundred yards to the south of Scott Field, Hardy Field continued to serve the Bulldogs' baseball team until the close of the 1964 baseball season, when it was razed for the construction of Dorman Hall.

Pictures of Davis Wade Stadium