Now that we’re officially in football season, I ran across the following. I somehow had not heard of this but found it very interesting as a college football fan. Plus, I’m fascinated with stadium architecture. .

I have to admire the folks in the Northwestern camp on multiple fronts here. They are the only small, private school in the BIG competing against public behemoths. Yet they still intend to compete, as evidenced by this monetary investment. This is an $800M project!! How many schools in the country have the financial reach to be able to do anything close to that? And more impressively, the will? The fact that its by a smaller program like Northwestern makes it even more impressive to me.

I also like their foresight to lean into their smaller fanbase size and build a high quality facility geared specifically for that. This stadium will be unique to them, but have all the bells, whistles and creature comforts of any stadium out there. It will appeal to the type of student-athlete they target and should help snag more Chicagoland recruits. Will also go a long way to having a full house of fans on gameday, which is a long standing problem for similar programs at Duke, Wake, and Vandy.

New Ryan Field