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Northwestern set to open new Ryan Field against Penn State
Northwestern will open the new Ryan Field Friday as the Wildcats host Penn State on FOX, with pregame festivities including an F-16 military flyover.
What a world we live in.
Northwestern football debuted its renovated Ryan Field Friday night. The $850 million stadium took three years from start to finish. The program’s official opening was highly anticipated for so many reasons.
All of the questions and wonders I had evaporated.
From the second I cleared the Central Street houses and Ryan Field emerged from the trees, I entered a new world. I just didn’t know what else existed in this world.
This is a new world, one where Northwestern plays in one of the best stadiums in the Midwest, bullies the assumed Big Ten blue bloods and makes you dream the biggest dream.
"This is something that dreams are made of, a night like tonight," Northwestern football coach David Braun said.
What a world, indeed.
That was all just on Friday night.
NU's New Home:
I toured Ryan Field when it was in progress back in July. I put a hard hat on and stepped on the field in a moment where I got to visualize a football game in the same spot where a hole had been for the last year and a half.
Slowly, but surely, the support beams began to rise and you got an idea of what it would look like. Friday was far from that original idea.
I took a walk around the Ryan Field concourse. Those who remember the old concrete cathedral will tell you there’s no comparison.
Back then, it was a simple walk around the concourse. The concessions and stores were simply placed. There was a simplicity to Ryan Field that made it feel like home, but it didn’t compare to the Big House, The Horseshoe or even Beaver Stadium.
Friday’s walk around the new concourse felt like a different world. There were concessions areas, designs and views far and away better from the likes of Soldier Field, the place the Chicago Bears have been trying to move from for the last five years. The "Wildcat Wall," the new student section, was filled to the brim the entire night.
The pregame energy and the team entrance cemented how different this is.
"I'm telling you right now, nights like tonight are nights that you pray for," Braun said.
It’s not the Big House, The Horseshoe or Beaver Stadium. Ryan Field is its own entity. Plenty on social media compared it to SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. Let’s not go that far, but it’s impossible to ignore the comparisons.
Still, at some point, I stopped thinking about that ole concrete cathedral. The place that made Northwestern feel so old school, rustic, down-to-earth or whatever else you may have thought about old Ryan Field does not exist anymore.
Now, Ryan Field means something new.
Whatever Northwestern imagined Friday night would look like, it’s hard to imagine anyone in purple asking for anything more.
Big picture view:
The new stadium is just part of this new world Northwestern created. A team needs to play there, after all.
Northwestern’s first game at Ryan Field was a 34-13 punishment of Penn State, where the score somehow didn’t accurately depict how badly the Cats took it to the Nittany Lions.
"My goodness, did they show a level of maturity, urgency and focus," Braun said of the team. "Running out of the tunnel to that crowd and student section, I don't know how our guys did it. I felt like I was in the best dream of my life."
Penn State’s only sustained offensive drive for a score came in the fourth quarter. Other than that, they only rushed for 48 total yards. NU rushed for 413 yards, the most since the ‘Cats ran rampant for 444 yards against Illinois on Nov. 22, 2003.
It felt like Northwestern gained four yards just by thinking about running the ball. The ‘Cats winged-T running formation was just bamboozling Penn State.
"We just run so much motion and action out of it the defense has no idea where the ball is," Joseph Himon II said.
After throwing the ball so much against Indiana, quarterback Aidan Chiles threw just 14 passes against Penn State. He did score a rushing touchdown, though, his fifth of the season. That’s the most rushing scores for an NU quarterback since Clayton Thorson had nine in 2018.
The quarterback credited the offensive line for everything on Friday night. They flattened Penn State.
"I'm taking them out to eat, for sure," Chiles said.
The defense was its usual self, this time stifling a Penn State offense that had issues going vertical for the entire game.
This is part of the new world we live in, where Northwestern football is no longer the bullied. They’re beginning to bully others, namely a Big Ten blue blood that was a play or two removed from the national championship game two years ago.
It wasn’t close.
A heartfelt Braun reflected after the game on how NU took a chance on an FCS defensive coordinator, and allowed him to make mistakes on the way to a day like Friday.
Braun credited the coaches who came before him to pave the way, like Gary Barnett, Randy Walker and Pat Fitzgerald. None of those coaches allowed you to think as big as I did on Friday.
There exists a world where Northwestern could host a College Football Playoff game at this new stadium. Much more has to go right for the program, but it’s not unheard of.
I never thought those heights were a possibility in the past, especially in the old Ryan Field.
What a world we live in.
"I think we've redefined the standard of what it looks like at Northwestern football," Braun said. "We have something special brewing."