AlabamaMan said:
Unless they lowered the field, this will be all.
I am not an engineer, but I do not think lowering the playing surface is possible.
First, I have been told the field is already below the sewage lines servicing the stadium and that it would be impossible to adequately drain the field. Compounding this issue is that I have also been told lowering the field would make it far too difficult to grow live grass (something to do with the underground water level in the area and the shadows cast by the stadium structure).
Second, lowering the field would require a major demolition and rebuild of the current end-zone stands to prevent all the seats in the old, lower bowl behind the end-line from becoming obstructed-view seats. As it is, it is almost impossible to see the entire end-zone from those seats and any lowering of the field will mean you may not see any action inside the 15-yard line (depending on how much you lower the surface) on your end of the field (further out if the fans are standing).
(The second issue is far more critical than the first.)
About the only future expansion beyond the South End Zone would be a second decking of either side (most likely the East Side) - like Sanford Stadium at UGa. But given the horizontal distance such a deck would have to be placed from the field, not to mention the pure height, that really does not look feasible.
I think the only way we could increase our capacity would be to blow everything up and start anew - or just build a new stadium better designed for such numbers elsewhere. And there is no way we will demolish or abandon a stadium where we have invested nearly $170MM over the last 20-or-so years. (Unless of course T. Boone Pickens tires of sending all his hundreds-of-millions to Okie St. and adopts us.)