I’ll feel happier about that if they smash Michigan State this weekend.
Like most NU fans there is a level of nervousness for games that should be on the “easy” side.
The Fitz dynamic makes it even more interesting.
https://evanstonroundtable.com/2026/10/12/evanston-new-trier-football-ryan-field/
We planned on attending this game, but didn’t snag tickets early enough. Depending on tickets distributed outside of ticketmaster this could be in the highest attended high school game in Illinois and in the top 10 nationwide EXCLUDING Texas which has gotten some crazy numbers.
First off, we won’t take them by surprise like we did with Indy and State Penn.
There were comments from the color guy on the Indiana-Nbraska game that the Huskers learned a few things about stopping the Indy offense from the NU game the week before, even giving our DC the credit.
But we now have a “12th man” situation in Ryan Field, as long as we don’t blow it.
Go B1GCats
rsl
Does Evanston limit the amount of non NU football events in a given year to be hosted at Ryan Field? And if so, would they count an ETHS football game as one of them?
Harry
That would rattle the NIMBYs… A HS game in Ryan?
Wow
Go B1GCats
rsl
https://wgntv.com/evanston/evanston-vs-new-trier-football-new-ryan-field/
27k tickets sold which is pretty impressive. We bought Rutgers tickets through a presale in the 200 level corner for around $60/per which is pretty reasonable so we will get our own chance to see the stadium.
Sat in the 200 level corner for the Ball State game and was blown away with how well the game can be watched and the video screens allow to see the replay. The stadium is impressive.
From the other side of the lake in MSU territory, the jury is still out on Fitz.
He’s talking a lot about culture, but he is going to need to get a few wins to convince people that the team is buying into the changes he wants to make. MSU boosters made a $100M payment into the NIL fund and another $290M for stadium renovations. So they feel they have done their part. Now it is up to Fitz. And the fact that he definitely lost it on the bad onside kick offside call, did not go over well here. It felt desperate for a guy who is preaching patience. It overshadowed the heart the team showed in the big comeback that they put together.
It will be interesting to see how Fitz transitions from his “outlier” NU pitch to the same pitch every wanna-be Michigan program is making - “you can make more money here than in AA”.
So much has changed in recruiting, particularly with what Cignetti has put together with one-year transfer players at Indiana and Mark Cuban’s money. We’ll see if Fitz can reinvent himself in this new world.
Right now MSU is really banged up, particularly with linebackers and secondary.
Combine that with the fact that Childs came to NU because MSU fired coach Smith and now he is playing well for the team that fired Fitz, there are more than enough shoulder chips to go around.
It will be a good test for the cats because on paper this could be a blowout for them. We’ll see if Braun is able to keep his team focused on playing up to their abilities rather than down to MSU’s disabilities.
Jeff
The MSU secondary may be short-handed but their DL looks pretty solid. Chiles looks like he’s starting to settle in to the game flow, though. Nice drive resulting in a TD for the Cats.