Ever the coach, Illinois’ Ron Zook has been thinking a lot about the new-look Memorial Stadium in preparation for Saturday night’s home opener against Western Illinois.
“I’ve been thinking more about the wind,” Zook said. “You don’t know what will happen until you play in it.”
Changes in the wind didn’t cost anything, not directly anyway. Illinois is roughly halfway through its $116 million renovation of Memorial Stadium so the 83-year-old structure will resemble a construction site this season. Cranes stand at attention outside the west wall and a vast, empty area where seats once were and suites will be next season dominates the view of the west stands.
The renovation project gave the Illini an opportunity to improve their home-field advantage. The north end zone has been rebuilt and enclosed, possibly changing wind currents and giving coaches something else to think about.
Probably of more importance, the band and students, vocal cords and all, will sit in the north end zone, although there will be some student spillover into the northeast stands.
The result, the Illini hope, will be a difficult trip to the end zone for the visitors.
“Closing in that north end zone is going to be tough coming off the goal line or coming in,” senior offensive lineman Martin O’Donnell said. “I think it will be more of an advantage for us.”
Linebacker Brit Miller expects opponents to have a hard time calling signals.
“Our fans will take care of that for us,” he said. “It will make the atmosphere so much better. … Nobody’s going to want to be pinned deep.”
The north end zone has a whole new look. The scoreboard has been relocated to the south end zone. The four murals, which since 2003 have featured ex-Illini stars Red Grange, Dick Butkus, Jim Grabowski and Dana Howard, are in storage.
The Zuppke Wall and Grange Rock have been moved closer to the field, and the players will start a new tradition by touching the rock as they take the field.
Zook hopes it all adds up to a better home-field advantage.
“We have to make Memorial Stadium more like Assembly Hall,” he said. “That’s a tough place to play.”
By this time next year, the renovation will be complete. The west side will have suites, club seating and a new press box.
An anonymous $5 million donation provided the funding for a new football training room that will be built underneath the north stands.
If the big thinkers at the university have their way, this won’t be the end of Memorial Stadium renovation. Associate athletic director Warren Hood said some day the south end zone could be renovated, and an upper deck added. That would boost capacity to 80,000.
“The money hasn’t been raised for that,” he said.
Because of the lost seats on the west side, this year’s capacity has been reduced to 57,078 from 69,249. Next year, with the renovation complete, the capacity will be between 63,000-64,000, Hood said. Adding suites and club seating on the west side reduced capacity, but money raised from the sale of those seats goes toward paying off 30-year bonds that are financing the project. The athletic department is selling naming rights within the stadium as well.
“We’ve had some surprises, absolutely,” Hood said of the project. “When you’re renovating something that’s 80 years old. … We found some 1920 power lines. The building was two inches off in a couple of areas from what had been surveyed. That doesn’t sound like much, but it caused three or four weeks of a lot of work by structural engineers.
“We ran across some old equipment, and some things we didn’t know existed. No trucks or cars or horses or bodies or anything like that, and we haven’t found Jimmy Hoffa yet.”
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tabannon@tribune.com
