Northwestern students got a sneak peek of the new $870 million Ryan Field last week.
The football team got to practice on the new turf for the first time on Sunday.
The rest of the college football world must wait until Friday night for its turn to tour the sport’s most expensive stadium when the Fox television cameras will be trained on Penn State (3-1, 0-1 Big Ten) and Northwestern (2-1, 0-1) in Evanston, Ill.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for an entire football program and athletic department to open up a facility that I would say is the best football stadium in the world,” Northwestern coach David Braun said.
Ryan Field fits 35,000 fans, but there aren’t 35,000 seats because Wildcats fans in the student section will stand just like soccer fans do overseas.
“I think the thing that impacts our team the most and is just so impressive is how the fans are truly on top of the action,” Braun said. “Standing at midfield, you almost feel like you can reach out and touch the stands. And the acoustics that that’s going to create with the canopy creates an incredible opportunity for a home-field advantage.”
Home-field advantage didn’t do Penn State much good last week. The Nittany Lions, ranked 13th nationally at the time, built a 17-0 lead against Wisconsin, only to lose 24-20 and drop out of the AP Top 25.
Penn State coach Matt Campbell talked Tuesday about all the soul-searching and game-reviewing he did over the previous 48 hours to find answers for the loss.
“It starts with myself and us as coaches,” Campbell said. “How do we give ourselves a better opportunity to have better flow in the football game? Offensively, we just couldn’t find a flow in the game, and part of that was, you know, how can we distribute the football better? How can we create more space?”
It didn’t help that senior quarterback Rocco Becht, who followed Campbell from Iowa State to Penn State, suffered through one of his toughest days. He hit just 12 of 29 passes for 114 yards, with one interception.
“I would say there were moments Rocco played really good football and there were moments where Rocco would tell you, man, his consistency needed to be better in the football game as well.”
While Penn State is picking up the pieces from a loss, Northwestern gained confidence from its setback at No. 5 Indiana on Sept. 25. The Wildcats pulled within two points with 5:10 to go before falling 29-23.
Northwestern senior quarterback Aidan Chiles, a transfer from Michigan State, contributed three touchdowns (two passing, one rushing) against Indiana as he continued his superb start working with new offensive coordinator Chip Kelly. Chiles has hit 70.7% (53 of 75) of his passes for 807 yards and six touchdowns, with no interceptions, and has rushed for four scores.
“We left that field feeling like we should have won that football game,” Braun said. “Ultimately, it was things in our control that we dropped the ball on that didn’t close it out the way that we wanted it to.”
–Field Level Media
