With the grating of the field ready for college football game this Saturday (2:30 pm) between the universities of Illinois and Northwestern, there are some narrow areas that promise to affect the performance of certain plays.
"I think it definitely is an element that affect the game," said Pat Fitzgerald, Northwestern coach (UN). "So let's plan the game thinking about it."
Parts of the eastern end of the field are at a distance you can even spit on the great right fielder. While the back of the end zone is only a foot of a thickly padded wall.
"I hope not as the Arena Football where you have to jump over fences," said UN receiver, Demetrius Fields.
A place near the southwestern corner of the field is about 6 feet of a padded brick wall.
The president of the Cubs, Crane Kenney, termed it as "pinch point" and said the team could not break down the wall to create more space to build the field.
"The brick wall is a feature of this magnificent stadium," he said. "So we are not going away."
The athletic direct UN, Jim Phillips, said, "We had managers watching the potential risks here. We civil engineers, security engineers. We had many people looking at the field because no one wants to put student-athletes at risk.
"We discussed everything from experts of both universities and in the end everyone agreed with the dimensions," said Phillips.
Now comes the fun part: The goalpost of this is secured with bricks a few feet below the first row of the stands ..
And this post does not have a network, so the ball in the field can kick out to the stands, Sheffield Avenue, or perhaps a roof.
