Playing Football At Soldier Field

I’ve lived closer to Chicago the Iowa City for most of my life now but I’ve never been to Soldier Field. On a personal level, I’m very excited that the game with Northern Illinois got scheduled there instead of at Iowa or Northern.

But, what do the Hawkeyes get out of the game?

The first big glaring benefit is recruiting. Iowa has been doing very well in the Chicago suburbs over the last few years. With Zook starting to gain some kind of momentum at Illinois, it is going to be much tougher to get those Illinois kids out of the state. Playing a game in their back yard provides an easy way to invite those kids to a local game to watch the Hawks and talk to the coaches. But, they could do that at Northern just as easily.

But Soldier Field is a pro stadium. You put High School athletes in a pro stadium and they start thinking about playing football on Sunday and they might start to think that Iowa is just the program to put them there.

Plus, it has to be fun for the current Hawkeyes to play in a pro stadium for the same kind of reasons. I still get tingly walking into the United Center because of my dreams of playing pro basketball in high school. There is a certain excitement just being in the pro facilities.

Another way the game at Soldier Field will benefit the Hawks is that a ton of Alumni live in Chicago and the suburbs. It seems like the governor of Iowa is in Chicago every year trying to talk the ex-Iowans into moving back. Fans that may not be willing or able to make the 4 hour commute to Kinnick will happily make the 30-60 minute trip to Soldier Field. And that means t-shirts, concessions, and maybe they’ll remember how much fun the games are and come back home for a game or two next year.

This is also a home game for Northern. Or at least a road game for Iowa. Since every Iowa/Northern Illinois game that I can remember has been at Iowa, it was probably time to head to DeKalb. TV and press coverage for a game in Chicago is going to be a lot stronger than a game in DeKalb.

What do you think about the neutral field location? Would you rather stay in a college stadium on a real college campus?