Northwestern’s Ryan Field makes the very bottom of our list. There was quite some debate as to who would make the bottom of our Toughest Venues list, but unfortunately Ryan Field barely lost out to two other venues in the Big Ten.

ATTENDANCE: 1

Ryan Field (Capacity: 47,130)
	Home Games	Overall attendance	Avg. attendance/ game
2007	7	172,125	24,589
2006	6	167,973	27,996
2005	6	195,163	32,527
2004	6	170,449	28,408
2003	6	172,578	28,763

As the only private institution in the Big Ten conference, Ryan Field’s empty seats can barely intimidate the Evanston High football team. Even when the Wildcat football team is doing well, they can barely fill the 47,130 seats at Ryan Field. Don’t believe me? Average attendance for the last 5 years peaked at 32,527 during the 2005 season. That’s more than 14,000 seats left available in what is already the smallest venue in the Big Ten.

TRADITION/HISTORY: 2

Lets not kid ourselves here. Though the Wildcats might have a Rose Bowl appearance in the past, they have historically been a bottom feeder in the Big Ten conference until Indiana and Illinois dethroned them from that spot recently.

Until this day, they still hold the all-time records for Division I-A losses, longest losing streak (32), points allowed, and negative point differential. To top it off, the 2006 Michigan State-Northwestern game marks the biggest comeback in history by the Spartans as Northwestern blew a 35 point lead midway through the third quarter.

When you hold more negative records than winning ones, you know this program has less historical success than a pet rock. But hey, at least they are smart. The students still carry on the tradition of ringing their keys claiming that the opposing team will be parking their cars one day.

FANS: 1

Apathetic. There are plenty of well versed Wildcat fans, but football will always play second fiddle to academics at Northwestern. When you have the most passionate Northwestern fans skip games to prepare for an exam, you know they have their priorities straight. But unfortunately, that will register as a 1 in the Fan category.

VENUE: 2

During Penn State’s Orange Bowl run in 2005, the road took the Lions into Ryan Field for an epic Robinson-Williams comeback in the fourth quarter. Though this should leave me with fond memories of Ryan Field, I left extremely happy but highly unsatisfied with the venue. When you play Big Ten football, you are playing with the big boys. The Big House, Beaver Stadium, the Horseshoe, Camp Randall and even Ross-Ade pack fans in like sardines.

At Ryan Field, you will always find available tickets at the counter without ever having to deal with scalpers. There is often more fans of the visiting team than Wildcat fans and thats not only limited to conference games either. And for a Big Ten venue, that is downright embarrassing. Though I understand the uphill battle the athletic department faces in putting butts in the seats (we have the same problem with basketball at Penn State), there is no reason why you can’t pack the smallest stadium in the Big Ten especially when big time conference programs make a visit every two years.

This isn’t the Big East, Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, Wisconsin, Purdue, Michigan State and Iowa are big draws when they play non-conference games away from their stadiums, theres no reason why fans shouldn’t flock to Evanston just to see them play as well.

Then theres the curved stadium and semi-open endzone design that just doesn’t aid the already dwindling crowd with noise. For teams like the Buckeyes, Wolverines, Badgers and Lions that are used to playing in hostile crowds week in and week out, Ryan Field actually offers a reprieve and allows these teams to almost take a breather that week.

WIN/LOSS RECORD: 3

	Home				Away
	W	L	W vs ranked	L vs ranked	W	L	W vs ranked	L vs ranked
2007	5	2	-	-	2	3	-	#8 Ohio State #19 Illinois
2006	2	4	-	#1 Ohio St	2	4	-	#2 Michigan
2005	4	2	#14 Wisconsin	#25 Michigan	3	2	#22 Michigan St	#18 Arizona St #10 Ohio St
2004	5	1	#6 Ohio St #19 Purdue	-	1	5	-	#19 Minnesota #7 Wisconsin #9 Michigan
2003	2	3	-	#15 Miami (OH) #20 Minnesota	4	3	-	#6 Ohio St #13 Purdue #4 Michigan
overall	18	12	3	4	12	17	1	11

The Northwestern football team has actually held a winning record at home overall during the last 5 years. To make things even better, they have also beaten 3 ranked conference opponents that ventured into Ryan Field. This is far better than some of their other conference members. Unlike in decades past, Northwestern has actually consistently been a middle-of-the-pack conference opponent than a bottom feeder thanks in large part to the new direction of its head coaches.

One would expect that with more wins, more fans would flock to Northwestern games. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been true at Northwestern. And until that happens, Ryan Field will continue to sit in last place on our Toughest Venues list.

TOTAL: 9 OUT OF POSSIBLE 55

Did you make it out to Ryan Field for a game? Share your experiences with us. Your memories of the venue might differ greatly from our perspective and we would like to know.

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