Illini Football 2023

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#251      

Fighter of the Nightman

Fighter of the Nightman
Chicago, IL
Fighter of the Nightman
blackdog said:
I purposely chose my season tickets to be closer to the student section to try and get at least some of the vibe from it. My grandfather's tickets used to be on the opposite side closed to where the opposing team section is and let me tell you that does not make for a pleasant game experience much of the time.
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Yeah, Purdue brought their band last year and had them right at the corner of East Main and the Horseshoe; we sat directly across from them in West Main. It sucked, you could hear Purdue's band - both the music AND their cheering - echo off the balcony above and it was really loud, meanwhile we could barely hear the Marching Illini since they were all the way on the other end of the stadium. It was a cherry on top of it already being 20-some degrees and watching us choke away the West title in an incredibly frustrating game. :cry:

TheChief4Life said:
Here’s the problem: they aren’t and they don’t. Should they be? Yes. Could this be a product of where they sit? Possibly. I am certainly not defending their current seating location. I will say this, though… They are oftentimes the last to arrive and the first to leave games.

Our student section leaves a lot to be desired. And, I’m not sure it has to do with where/how they’re seated.
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Yeah, I am sure it is a bit of a chicken-and-the-egg thing. Best plan of action seems to be to move them out of the NEZ and win 8+ games again this year, huh?? :cool:
 
#252      

fuddrules

F
fuddrules
Fighter of the Nightman said:
I just think that area would be better used as a family area or large group ticket sales (e.g., high school football teams or youth groups) rather than putting our students there.

EDIT: Given the photo you posted, it seemed like you were at least kind of defending the students being there.
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You'd have a tough time filling that area during a game like Nebraska this season. Something like Band Day would work on a Saturday but only for the first half then it would be empty again.

Let's see how this season goes with attendance and atmosphere. Not an ideal area for the students but not terrible either.

Beating Toledo is huge. Not an easy task. Bielema lost to Toledo at home in his 3rd season at Arkansas failing to punch it in inside the 10 at the end.
 
#253      

redwingillini11

redwingillini11
White and Sixth
North Aurora
redwingillini11
I too think we should get the students as close to the field as possible, but I do think the NEZ gets a worse rap than it deserves. I may have liked better seats when I was a student, but sitting in the third row of the NEZ I always felt like it was ok enough.

I also admit that the NEZ as it currently is is not very viable in the long run if it isn't used as a student section. But we could patch together some fixes in the meantime while we raise the money for a proper renovation.

Short term projects: 1) Students to the north end of the east side line; 2) stop selling seats under the east balcony (if people trickle up that way that's fine, but lets just stop selling seats up there unless we are REALLY selling out the stadium); 3) start going around to a bunch of high schools in the state handing out free tickets (it gets people in the (least-desirable) seats, it develops interest in and support for the program, it builds a huge amount of goodwill, and you can still make money on concessions); and 4) put in some temporary seating that brings the horseshoe down to field level.

Long term projects: 1) turn the NEZ into a 1/2 beer garden 1/2 family fun area; 2) expand the east concourse and remove the seating under the east balcony just like the west sideline; 3) build a proper SEZ along the lines of what Iowa did for their NEZ.
 
#254      

BZuppke

BZuppke
Plainfield
BZuppke
While it wasn’t loud it was intimidating. It was telling everyone including the other team that this would be a big defensive play and you better look out. Coach Zuppke himself remarked about how much the ‘Tom tom beat’ revved up the Illini back in his day. Sadly another piece of our tradition gone. Glad it doesn’t play anymore and give me racist thoughts 🙄
 
#256      

Fighter of the Nightman

Fighter of the Nightman
Chicago, IL
Fighter of the Nightman
redwingillini11 said:
I too think we should get the students as close to the field as possible, but I do think the NEZ gets a worse rap than it deserves. I may have liked better seats when I was a student, but sitting in the third row of the NEZ I always felt like it was ok enough.

I also admit that the NEZ as it currently is is not very viable in the long run if it isn't used as a student section. But we could patch together some fixes in the meantime while we raise the money for a proper renovation.

Short term projects: 1) Students to the north end of the east side line; 2) stop selling seats under the east balcony (if people trickle up that way that's fine, but lets just stop selling seats up there unless we are REALLY selling out the stadium); 3) start going around to a bunch of high schools in the state handing out free tickets (it gets people in the (least-desirable) seats, it develops interest in and support for the program, it builds a huge amount of goodwill, and you can still make money on concessions); and 4) put in some temporary seating that brings the horseshoe down to field level.

Long term projects: 1) turn the NEZ into a 1/2 beer garden 1/2 family fun area; 2) expand the east concourse and remove the seating under the east balcony just like the west sideline; 3) build a proper SEZ along the lines of what Iowa did for their NEZ.
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I agree with all of this 100%. While the east side looks cool/classic in its own right, it seems like a huge mistake to have renovated the west side to have a totally different look ... it kills the symmetry that always made Memorial Stadium unique and beautiful, IMO. I can't remember the exact numbers, but somebody last year figured out that there well over 5k seats underneath that east balcony overhang ... remove those seats, put in a nice looking brick wall to match the west and all of a sudden you have 5k+ in capacity to play around with filling in the rest of the stadium (such as the Horseshoe). Let's all pray for the day we get this rendering ... SO beautiful!

rendering-memorialstadiuminterior-1920x1080-1.jpg


Other great examples from around college football that look really cool but actually don't have that high of a capacity ... if and when we ever get the funding:

Iowa State
635762071220988016-sukupendzoneclub007.JPG


Indiana
Memorial-Stadium-Athletic-Complex1_44c71f1d-5056-a36a-068d59c196658f2f.jpg


TCU
HdQkAS4.jpg


I know money is the main obstacle, of course. However, Memorial Stadium has SUCH a rich basic architecture and history behind that architecture that I would love to see something like that TCU picture in one of the end zones except accentuating bricks/columns to compliment the rest of the stadium. As others have pointed out, we cannot justify additional capacity at this point ... but you could fix up our stadium quite a bit and actually reduce capacity by over 7k or so.

GOD, I wish I had skills in graphic design, I'd be doing this all day. :ROFLMAO:
 
#257      

Battle89

Battle89
Battle89
Fighter of the Nightman said:
I agree with all of this 100%. While the east side looks cool/classic in its own right, it seems like a huge mistake to have renovated the west side to have a totally different look ... it kills the symmetry that always made Memorial Stadium unique and beautiful, IMO. I can't remember the exact numbers, but somebody last year figured out that there well over 5k seats underneath that east balcony overhang ... remove those seats, put in a nice looking brick wall to match the west and all of a sudden you have 5k+ in capacity to play around with filling in the rest of the stadium (such as the Horseshoe). Let's all pray for the day we get this rendering ... SO beautiful!

View attachment 26971

Other great examples from around college football that look really cool but actually don't have that high of a capacity ... if and when we ever get the funding:

Iowa State
635762071220988016-sukupendzoneclub007.JPG
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Have been to Jack Trice for a game and it was a phenomenal atmosphere.

As to killing the symmetry at home, IMO they did that when they put the press box and suites above the west side. A necessary evil in today's game, I know, but I think it is very unattractive, and totally conflicts with the architecture of the original stadium build. Not sure how just replacing under-balcony seating with a wall helps with that.
 
#258      

TentakilRex

TentakilRex
Land O Insects between Quincy-Macomb-Jacksonville
TentakilRex
If I could back to college (among the ten thousand other things I would have done), I would have toyed with doing the "Black Hole of Oakland" thing at games.
 
#259      

Fighter of the Nightman

Fighter of the Nightman
Chicago, IL
Fighter of the Nightman
Battle89 said:
Have been to Jack Trice for a game and it was a phenomenal atmosphere.

As to killing the symmetry at home, IMO they did that when they put the press box and suites above the west side. A necessary evil in today's game, I know, but I think it is very unattractive, and totally conflicts with the architecture of the original stadium build. Not sure how just replacing under-balcony seating with a wall helps with that.
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Yeah, it won't fix it entirely, but I think it would at least help a bit ... honestly the more important thing is just (A) who the hell wants to sit under there if there are seats outside (unless it's raining, I guess) and (B) aesthetically that capacity should just simply be used elsewhere.

Also, I will finally let this obsession of mine die, but newly-minted-MS-Paint-expert Fighter of the Nightman tried to visualize how much more complete I think the stadium would look with simply bringing the Horseshoe seats down to field level. :ROFLMAO:

Current Memorial Stadium
Untitled.png


Filled In Horseshoe
MS 1.png


Again, I get it's not a huge deal ... but that second picture makes Memorial Stadium just look WAY more legit to me, and it could actually be a really cool place to put the students. Add some column-like architecture on top to give it more height, and I unironically think you have one of the best stadiums in college football.
 
#260      

Mr. Tibbs

Mr. Tibbs
southeast DuPage
Mr. Tibbs
BZuppke said:
While it wasn’t loud it was intimidating. It was telling everyone including the other team that this would be a big defensive play and you better look out. Coach Zuppke himself remarked about how much the ‘Tom tom beat’ revved up the Illini back in his day. Sadly another piece of our tradition gone. Glad it doesn’t play anymore and give me racist thoughts 🙄
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excellent

you are going WAY back to the times of leather helmets
 
#261      

Shief

Shief
Champaign Area
Shief
Fighter of the Nightman said:
Yeah, it won't fix it entirely, but I think it would at least help a bit ... honestly the more important thing is just (A) who the hell wants to sit under there if there are seats outside (unless it's raining, I guess) and (B) aesthetically that capacity should just simply be used elsewhere.

Also, I will finally let this obsession of mine die, but newly-minted-MS-Paint-expert Fighter of the Nightman tried to visualize how much more complete I think the stadium would look with simply bringing the Horseshoe seats down to field level. :ROFLMAO:

Current Memorial Stadium
View attachment 26974

Filled In Horseshoe
View attachment 26975

Again, I get it's not a huge deal ... but that second picture makes Memorial Stadium just look WAY more legit to me, and it could actually be a really cool place to put the students. Add some column-like architecture on top to give it more height, and I unironically think you have one of the best stadiums in college football.
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I agree that closing the horseshoe would do wonders for the stadium and should not cost a ton. When I was in school, I estimated that doing that would add ~2k seats.
 
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#263      

Mr. Tibbs

Mr. Tibbs
southeast DuPage
Mr. Tibbs
Shief said:
I agree that closing the horseshoe would do wonders for the stadium and should not cost a ton. When I was in school, I estimated that doing that would add ~2k seats.
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to do it properly in this state with mandated labor rates cost 5x what you think

and that’s all I got to say about that

if you can’t add 5000 - 7000 seats in the process, don’t bother
 
#266      

Illini92and96

Illini92and96
Austin, TX
Illini92and96
Anyone with Background know why we couldn’t have used brick and cement or something resembling that to build the new press box so it would have fit better with the rest of the stadium?
 
#267      

Shief

Shief
Champaign Area
Shief
WWWWRocU said:
In general, would just really like to have the total capacity climb back to 70k.
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Mr Tibbs is correct that we do not have the demand for 70k seats but I agree with you that I would like us to get back to that range.

Closing the horseshoe would likely bring us to ~63k and I would like to see the NEZ redesigned to be a 2 tier design, a 20 or 25 row section on the ground and 20 or 30 rows higher up; that will likely add another 2 to 3k and then the scoreboard could be moved there. The remaining few thousand would likely come from adding permanent rows to the top of the horseshoe, similar to the temporary structure from years past, to wrap around and add more portals, amenities (restrooms, food, etc), and space higher up.
 
#268      

illiniwil

I
illiniwil
there's nothing wrong with the press box cladding. You can't hang heavy stone or brick on a press box, too much weight.
that's why you don't see brick or stone clad press boxes. Certainly, If you could have enough powerful alumni to add boxes on
the east, that would certainly add revenue. The horseshoe is another story. The single most important thing to do is fill
the stadium! Then we have the revenue to do a lot of things including expanding/filling the horseshoe, moving student seats, )
(i personally like them in the north endzone) etc. Keep in mind that the 1920's replication of Georgian architecture from the
campus is one of a kind and very difficult and expensive to replicate. any attempt without a huge check book looks fake. the
university battles this dilema every time they build a campus building.
 
#270      

ChiefGritty

ChiefGritty
Chicago, IL
ChiefGritty
The view/entrance of the stadium from the West inclusive of Grange Grove and all is pretty good, IMO.

That and the adjoining field could be the most happening tailgate scene north of the Mason-Dixon line, it's a rare commodity in terms of the space immediately next to the stadium.
 
#271      

Bucktown

B
Bucktown
Illini92and96 said:
Anyone with Background know why we couldn’t have used brick and cement or something resembling that to build the new press box so it would have fit better with the rest of the stadium?
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I see Illiniwil beat me to it, but ...This is all conjecture with no first hand knowledge, but I am would guess it was weight in the literal sense and the design sense. A big brick structure sitting on top of stadium would make it look even more top heavy than it does now. Plus the steel and glass makes for better viewing. Brick would need columns and supports and interrupt site lines. There is also a line of thinking when doing additions to historic structures that the addition should be different enough from and make deference to the original structure to keep the prominence of the original structure.
 
#272      

Mr. Tibbs

Mr. Tibbs
southeast DuPage
Mr. Tibbs
imo, there is nothing "wrong" with the west side modifications
the NEZ was simply Guenthers way to isolate students. Dont spend any real money changing that until the EAST side and Horseshoe are renovated
if we can keep winning and start getting 5-6 sellouts a year, maybe its a real topic in 3 years.

It would be nice to get back up to 70K

I also don't understand why we cant have real grass, but thats a completely different discussion.
 
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