I think it takes a while for zoysia to get fully established. I noticed that they wilt rather quickly if gone too long without water early on. 8 weeks isn't long enough for sure. Maybe the sprinklers are off or something. Put tuna cans everywhere and see how much water they get during your normal watering time and adjust it accordingly. Once established, they are hard to get rid off compared to bermuda and st augustine in partial shade condition like yours esp during terrible drought.

Tweaking saltcedar's comment -- perhaps a mix of perennial and annual rye might work well. For example, a mix of one part perennial and two parts annual. A question for you, ryker-lakes, is -- what kind of tool will you be using to cut up 3 pallets of sod? I am interested because I may do the same.

1. Yes be concerned. This is what happens when sod stays on the pallet for too long. It has smothered or gotten a disease. For smothering all you can do is work it back to life. The underlying roots are probably not dead, but the tops are. Zoysia does not bounce back quickly so be patient. If it was a disease, it will probably not live through the winter, so just watch it carefully now. With winter dormancy coming quickly, there is not much you can do that will really help. You could apply a fungicide but you'll not know if it worked because the lawn will go dormant about the time it starts to look better. 2. This happens all the time but it should not. Maybe Lone Star Grass is not the place to buy sod. 3. Not correct. At that rate you'll flood the grass and soil underneath. Let's hope and assume they rolled the sod down. What you are doing by watering is trying to get the roots to knit into the underlying soil. That only requires moisture, not mud. Instead water it for 10 minutes 3x per day. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are perfect times. Then back way off. In the winter you will not need to water more than once a month. In the summer you will ramp back up to watering an inch (or so) per week. How much you water in the summer depends on shade, wind, humidity, soil type, grass height, density and maybe something else. I watered no more than 5/8 of an inch per week this past summer. 4. Keep an eye on zoysia. At the first sign of the grass not looking right, watch it like a hawk. As I mentioned above, zoysia does not rebound quickly from a disease or insect experience. Why did you decide on zoysia rather St Augustine or bermuda, which account for 99.99% of the turf in Texas?

You can spray it with a fungicide, but the grass is already dead. Those are fungal disease spots. This is the main reason why people get rid of their zoysia grass lawns. What you will find is the spot will turn brown for the rest of the season. There is nothing you can do to make it come back any faster. I suppose you could carve out a spot from a different part of the lawn that fits and plug it in. But then I would expect the new piece to die from the same disease. The normal organic approach to fungal disease is to scatter ordinary corn meal at 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. Give that three weeks and the disease should be gone. That will not help get the new grass to fill in, though.