Toughest Venues: #10 Memorial Stadium
Memorial Stadium makes its appearance at #10 on the Toughest Venues list. But which Memorial Stadium are we talking about? Like two kids repeating each other’s every word, both Indiana and Illinois share the same name for both their football and basketball venues. As someone not invested in this rivalry, it just seems juvenile to me.
Fortunately for Illinois, the Memorial Stadium that sits at #10 in our list is the one that resides in Bloomington, Indiana. And if ex-head coach Terry Hoeppner has his way, Indiana will soon be referring to Memorial Stadium as “The Rock”.
ATTENDANCE: 3
| Memorial Stadium (Capacity: 52,354) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Home Games | Overall attendance | Avg. attendance/ game | |
| 2007 | 7 | 259,025 | 37,004 |
| 2006 | 7 | 213,443 | 33,063 |
| 2005 | 6 | 237,214 | 39,536 |
| 2004 | 5 | 141,887 | 28,377 |
| 2003 | 6 | 209,900 | 34,983 |
It’s one thing to not fill the seats when your team is doing well, its another to not fill your seats because your team is just plain out bad. Indiana falls in the latter as the Hoosiers have flirted with the postseason the last couple of years, but still haven’t had the breakout year Illinois had last year. Therefore we shouldn’t be laughing at Indiana’s inability to fill seats but we should rather be commending them for 37,000 of them actually showing up to support a losing team.
TRADITION/HISTORY: 1
Illinois at least has Dick Butkus to boast about. Indiana’s most notable football alum just might be Anthony Thompson. Who? Exactly. Or to those with a shorter memory span, Antwaan Randle El who most recently helped the Steelers win their fifth Super Bowl.
For a team that has been part of the Big Ten for so long, Indiana has surely underachieved in football.
FANS: 3
As badly as the team performs, Indiana fans still continue to support a team that consistently fails on the gridiron. But, for a basketball school, Hoosier fans actually know their football quite well. Unfortunately it has become a new tradition to arrive to football games only to leave before the 3rd quarter is over.
But one thing that does set Hoosier fans apart from most other Big Ten fans is their hospitality. Win or lose, Hoosier fans know how to treat their visitors with respect. It might be because of their experience with winning on the hardwood. But you rarely hear of Hoosier fans berating opposing fans on game day. For that they get the thumbs up in the Fans category.
VENUE: 1
When you are attempting to change your venue name as recently as last year, there isn’t much to brag about to begin with. Even though Memorial Stadium is built similarly to Lane Stadium at Virginia Tech, it is no where as loud or as intimidating as Lane.
WIN/LOSS RECORD: 1
| Home | Away | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| W | L | W vs ranked | L vs ranked | W | L | W vs ranked | L vs ranked | |
| 2007 | 5 | 2 | - | - | 2 | 3 | - | - |
| 2006 | 3 | 4 | #15 Iowa | #2 Michigan | 2 | 3 | - | #1 Ohio St |
| 2005 | 3 | 3 | - | #14 Ohio St | 1 | 4 | - | #17 Wisconsin #2 Michigan |
| 2004 | 2 | 3 | #23 Minnesota | #18 Michigan | 1 | 5 | - | #25 Oregon |
| 2003 | 2 | 4 | - | #6 Ohio St #13 Purdue |
0 | 6 | - | #4 Michigan #20 Minnesota |
| overall | 15 | 16 | 2 | 5 | 6 | 21 | 0 | 6 |
Indiana holds the worst home field record in the Big Ten for the past 5 seasons. For that the automatically get a 1 in this category. Indiana also holds the worst record for upsetting ranked teams at Memorial Stadium with only 2 such upsets since 2003.
Let’s just hope that once Memorial Stadium is renamed ‘The Rock’, they will have better luck on the gridiron.
TOTAL: 9 OUT OF POSSIBLE 55
Did you make it out to Memorial Stadium (Indiana) 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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I’m an Indiana season ticket holder, living in California, so I get out to see one or two games in Bloomington, but I also go to USC and UCLA games here in LA, so I have some frame of reference of what big time football environments are like. I was at the Penn State game last year in Bloomington. The environment was an improvement over years past, and the game was competitive (also an improvement). Big fun, and all the Penn State fans were cool.
It’s hard to disagree with your overall assessment, but there are a few points to bring to your attention:
1. IU upset Oregon in 2003, at their place, thanks to 7 (?) turnovers.
2. 2007 was the best season for IU since the early 90′s. The final home game versus Purdue was a big time football environment. Watch some of the youtube videos to see the crowd’s enthusiasm.
3. Also, in case you missed it, IU did go to a bowl game in 2007. I can’t blame you if you blinked and missed it. There was also surprisingly good support at the game in Tempe. I guess if you only get to one bowl every 14 years, people don’t want to miss out.
4. “The Rock” name is only unofficial, and has been used since Terry Hoeppner’s first season in 2005.
5. 2007′s attendance numbers are a bit more impressive (if that word can be used in this context) than it might appear, because it did NOT include an O$U sell-out, which boosts the average by 3k to 4k the years they and their fans take over the stadium.
6. Regarding the loudness of the stadium, there is project to enclose the north endzone, so that will make a difference in the acoustics. Not 100% sure, but I think the exterior might be finished in time for the 2008 season. The stadium is actually quite a good design, with good sight lines. If we could only fill it up on a consistent basis…
7. I challenge you to find a better tailgating experience than at IU, especially in late October with the spectacular rolling hills with leaves in full color. Unfortunately, it’s maybe too good. If we only get them to actually go into the stadium, we’d be a lot closer to capacity.