Northwestern’s bold claim to the future of their sport — the most expensive college football stadium ever built — was baptized by the sounds of AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” on Friday night.
As the Wildcats prepared to run onto the field seconds before kickoff, the guitar licks bounced off the new concrete, old limestone and soccer-style canopy of the stadium. Players sprinted across the field and stopped in front of their new student section, the Wildcat Wall. Two thousand students stomped and kicked up an ear-splitting, Advil-reaching frenzy.
It was all so, well, not Northwestern. The Big Ten’s smallest, most demure fan base had never seen — or heard — anything like this. Moments after the Wildcats took the field, an NFL scout commented to no one in particular that it didn’t feel like a pro football stadium — it felt like an NBA arena, complete with throbbing music and flashy video.
There were years when that would have been the apex of the Northwestern football experience. Friday night, though, they battered and bullied Penn State to a 34-13 win that will earn the 4-1 Wildcats votes in the top 25 poll, if not a place in it. Offensive coordinator Chip Kelly kept the ball as close to the new artificial turf field as possible, leaning on running backs Caleb Komolafe (23 carries for 169 yards) and Joseph Himon II (nine for 165). They finished with 413 rushing yards, almost nine times what Penn State posted.
Whether Northwestern can use the $875 million Ryan Field to its advantage beyond Friday remains to be seen. There were empty purple seats scattered throughout the 35,000-seat stadium — and many more covered by Penn State fans wearing white. Booster Pat Ryan’s dream stadium is unique to the Big Ten — it’s the smallest in the football-crazy league — if not the sport.
It was ready Friday because it had to be. When I took my dog for a walk eight hours before kickoff — I live down the street — employees were still screwing in streetlights and testing turnstiles with QR codes. Freshly planted flowers were being watered.
When it was clear the stadium wouldn’t be ready for the start of this season, serendipity brought Northwestern a worthy story line.
One hundred years ago to the day Friday, 18,000 fans watched the Purple beat South Dakota, 34-0, when they debuted their as-yet-unnamed $2 million stadium. Vic Gustafson scored a touchdown and then on the next play intercepted a pass and returned it for a touchdown as the first-half gun — back when they used one— sounded. Gustafson, who would go on to captain the Wildcats’ first Big Ten championship team the next year, had shared the backfield at Wheaton High School with none other than Red Grange.
A month later, the stadium was named after William Dyche, the former Evanston mayor and Northwestern vice president who had originally ordered the construction of wooden football bleachers in 1905. In 1997, the stadium was christened Ryan Field after the booster and longtime Northwestern Board of Trustees chair — who is the founder of AON and part-owner of the Bears — paid for a massive renovation. The stadium still felt old. In the 2008 Ernie Davis biopic “The Express,” it served as a stand-in for Syracuse’s Archbold Stadium, which had closed 30 years earlier.
The old stadium was torn down in February 2024. The Wildcats spent the interim two-and-a-half years splitting time between the temporary Martin Stadium on campus — Colorado players called it a "library," remember? — and Wrigley Field.
Friday night, years of construction and a century of prelude produced Northwestern’s bold statement to the rest of the country. When quarterback Aidan Chiles kneeled to end the game, he turned around and sprinted toward the Wildcat Wall. His teammates chased after him, the last open-field spring in a night full of them.
Thunderstruck, indeed.
