11/05/24
November 19, 2010
One-way football: Are you going to tomorrow's NWU-Illinois game at Wrigley? If so, you'd better hope that you got seats on the west side of the field... otherwise you may not see too much.
posted by DrJohnEvans to football at 01:51 PM - 13 comments
That's the first thing I thought of when I first heard of this half of a field game. When he hits the 50-yard-line, does he do a 180?
posted by NoMich at 02:47 PM on November 19, 2010
That's what I like: Great planning!
posted by dyams at 02:55 PM on November 19, 2010
The square peg didn't fit into the round hole. Someone flunked kindergarten.
They ought to get plenty of fans in the far seats wanting refunds. Could get ugly.
posted by wowjimi at 02:55 PM on November 19, 2010
I think it's being slightly misinterpreted by the posters here so far: they aren't going to only play on one side of the 50-yard line. They're just going to always have the offense go toward the west end zone, which means they would change ends of the field after any change of possession play. Not sure about how they'll handle kickoffs, though.
posted by TheQatarian at 02:56 PM on November 19, 2010
It's worth noting that the Chicago Bears played at Wrigley for half a century. It was just as dangerous then one of the end zones fell off into a dugout. But they valued human life less in those days.
The best line in the story came at the end.
posted by Demophon at 02:56 PM on November 19, 2010
Isn't this the definition of trying to jam a square peg into a round hole?
posted by cjets at 05:37 PM on November 19, 2010
Or what wowjimi said.
posted by cjets at 05:48 PM on November 19, 2010
Many years ago when I coached Pop Warner we played a team (in N.J) that played on a "short field" 90 yards long. They set it up so if you made it to the 20 or closer without scoring they moved the ball back 10 yards. It worked okay I guess, but that team was so bad that we seldom made it to the 20 without scoring. As a matter of fact we often gave them a score with the kickoff to them at the second half. Honestly, our kids were pretty good actors falling down and being "blocked" by them. And, we never ran the score up on them. The "white team", second string ,played almost three quarters of the game.
posted by wildbill1 at 05:56 PM on November 19, 2010
Experienced a similar circumstance during a JV game when the lights at one end malfunctioned.
Since it was a JV game, the coaches weren't interested in rescheduling, so once the team that was headed toward the "dark" end zone got past midfield, they turned the teams around. Don't remember it being that big of a deal, but again, it was JV level football.
posted by dviking at 07:44 PM on November 19, 2010
All offensive plays will now head toward the west end zone.
All kickoffs will head into the east end zone.
Boy, these guys thought of everything!
posted by roberts at 08:24 PM on November 19, 2010
The speculation I've seen from the NU football email list (I'm an alum) is that Jim Delany got cold feet and forced the change once the pics of the east end zone showed how close to the bricks and Ivy the players were going to get. I'm kind of bummed that the game's getting bad pub now, especially with ESPN's College Gameday being there today, but hopefully it'll be a good game anyway and we'll beat Illinois once again.
posted by ursus_comiter at 10:46 AM on November 20, 2010
I guess the game went fine, although they showed several views from lower level in the back (way under the upper deck overhang) that did not look like very good places to watch a game from--and most of those were on the scoring end. It's too bad they didn't let NU kick an extra point on the outfield end after the pick-6 scored in that endzone. It could have gone into the street!
posted by bender at 08:48 PM on November 20, 2010
Going to be a pain in the ass on a greater-than 50 yard interception return.