For the past two seasons, no Northwestern football has been in seen or heard between Evanston’s Central Street and Ashland Avenue, but that is about to change come Penn State on Friday.

Students at Northwestern and the surrounding community have been seeing what the “New Ryan Field” is expected to look like since September 2022, when early design concepts were announced. Nearly two years later, in February 2024, demolition of the old Ryan Field began.

Many things were undecided for a while. What was this new stadium looking to achieve, and where would the Wildcats play in the meantime?

As the Wildcats prepare for a new chapter in Evanston, we take a look at how both of these questions have been answered throughout the past two years.

‘The most expensive college stadium’

Valued as a $875 million project, the new Ryan Field is dubbed as the most expensive football stadium in modern college football.

According to the New Ryan Field website, where the project is explained in detail, the new venue will even be the first NFL-type stadium in college football.

Updates on the construction of the new field have been provided every few months, even more frequently leading up to its finalization. One of the main highlights has been the reduction of seat capacity, going from 47,000 to 35,000 seats. Aiming for a “more intimate experience,” this will make it the smallest football stadium in the Big Ten Conference, placing it below Maryland’s SECU Stadium.

While other Big Ten schools have made constant renovations to expand on seating, such as Penn State’s Beaver Stadium, Northwestern has opted for the opposite, with its small-sized undergraduate student body. Yet, the fan experience has been highly prioritized in the new stadium, amongst other factors.

The promise

It has constantly been emphasized that the new stadium aims to go beyond the sport, helping to drive revenue for the greater Evanston area through local businesses and event opportunities.

According to the promised numbers, it is projected that the new stadium will bring more than $659 million in economic impact to Evanston, $208 million in contracts for businesses – especially local, women and minority-owned – and more than $12 million in direct fees to the city.

“The new Ryan Field is important to our Wildcats, yes, but it is much more than a football stadium,” said former Northwestern President Michael Schill in 2024.

For example, with the “death of the nosebleed seat,” the fan experience will take on a different form, where every seat will be a “premium seat.” Fans will now see benches and bleachers replaced by individual chairs with cupholders and armrests – just one of the many new commodities being introduced.

On top of that, the inclusion of a plaza and festival grounds will make the new stadium 520,000 square feet larger than the previous one. In its plan to be “more than a football stadium,” the venue can also be used to host soccer matches and concerts, although no specific events have been confirmed at the moment.

A placeholder: Martin Stadium

As everyone wondered where they would be able to root for the Wildcats in the meantime, in April 2024 the University announced the team would stay in Evanston for both the 2024 and 2025 football seasons.

This is where Martin Stadium came in – later on rebranded as Northwestern Medicine Field at Martin Stadium on a two-year naming rights partnership – which would undergo expansions to accommodate a capacity of 12,000 seats. The reduced venue already housed Northwestern’s lacrosse and soccer teams, a year later even hosting the National Women’s Soccer League’s Chicago Stars, but that didn’t stop football fans from showing up.

A comparison of the Wildcats’ final two seasons at the old Ryan Field with their first two seasons at Martin Stadium shows just how much anticipation has built for a return to Ryan Field. With the Wildcats reaching near-sellout numbers in seven of 10 home games over the past two seasons, the question now is how full the new Ryan Field can be with the return of greater seating capacity and more opportunities to accommodate fans. The last time Northwestern was close to selling out a home game at the old Ryan Field was against Ohio State in 2022, recording 42,774 attendees.

It’s all about the culture

Following the 2026 schedule announcement in February, Mark Jackson, Combe Family Vice President for Athletics and Recreation, said the opener against Penn State “provides us with an extraordinary stage to showcase the incredible stadium and the culture that Head Coach David Braun has established.”

In the Braun era, Northwestern has accumulated a 19-19 record over the past three seasons, while going two-for-two in bowl game wins. There is a clear winning pathway being carved, but now it’s only a matter of seeing how the Wildcats can keep up with such growth in the program and stand out among fellow powerhouse Big Ten teams.

The Wildcats played their first two 2026 games at Martin Stadium, emerging victorious against South Dakota and then trouncing Colorado. They then traveled to Indiana and came close to winning against the reigning national champions. Now, they will test their luck at the new Ryan Field against the Nittany Lions.

Can there be an actual correlation between a new venue and a successful new chapter in Wildcat football? Whether a new environment can have an influence or not will be a conversation for the postseason.