#40 Northwestern

Evanston, IL

Ryan Field September 21, 2019 Michigan St 31 – Northwestern 10 (ESPN Recap)

A lot of people asked me how the game/experience was today at Ryan Field. I told all of them that it was a super cute stadium. Cute size, cute polite fans, no chants other than a few MSU “Go Green! Go White!” back and forths which was cute since they were the road team. It is really hard to believe that NU hosts the rest of the Big 10 teams in that stadium: Ohio St, Michigan, Penn St, Wisconsin, Nebraska, etc. It is tiny. Cute.

Despite having close friends in Chicago who I spent dinner with last night, I could not convince them to join for the lowest CFB total in 3 years (closed at 36.0). I took the U39.5 and suffered a bad beat with 2 mins left and both teams playing their backups, which led to Northwestern’s only TD of the game. #99 on Michigan State’s DL is a beast and looked like a man amongst boys.

I loved the game and the sweat despite the late loss. Great to kick it with Joe (+family) and meet Peter at the ambulance pregame.

I had not watched NW play yet this year, but I have watched a few dozen of their games over the past decade and Coach Fitz is still Coach Fitz. To the amusement of the fans around me, I was predicting play calls and out comes (yardage and all) correctly about 70% of the time. “Draw up the middle for 1 yard…Incomplete pass…either sack or completion for 3-4 yards and a punt.” Stuff like that. I don’t know whether it is coaching or personnel, but the NW offense is painful to watch, has no creativity, and appears to have no talent. Aside from Justin Jackson and Trevor Siemien, what I saw today is essentially what I have seen for the past decade out of the Cats.

I tried to high tail out of Evanston to get to game two of the double-header down in Champaign. More on that in the next post.

Evanston, IL

Martin Stadium

October 4, 2025

Northwestern 42 - UL Monroe 7 (ESPN Recap)

Pretty excited to get to one of the six games ever played at Martin Stadium while on a family weekend trip to Chicago. It was Cata's 6th, Jason's 3rd, and Jacoby's 2nd CFB game. We arrived 6 minutes into Q1 and it was 7-0 UL Monroe. We promptly watched the Cats rattle off 42 unanswered which included a 1H -6.5 cover, but was one TD too many for the U42.0. The quality of football from both teams was underwhelming, but the experience and views was so unique that I enjoyed the afternoon. Thanks to Eric L for the Homecoming tickets hook up!

There is only one entry/exit for the temporary stadium and then when you're inside, you have access to lake views, city skyline views, a small number of stadium seats, and porta potties.

Highlights from the experience included the grassy knoll at halftime; the player walkway path that bifurcates the access to the bleachers, which caused a large traffic jam at both ends of the halftime; honoring the women's golf natty champs (as pictured on the "jumbotron"; a super high speed go kart timeout contest; and the stunning show put on by the stadium lighting after each NU score (see video below).

I didn't think you could possibly get cuter than Ryan Field for a P4 stadium, but Northwestern one-upped themselves.