Evanston, Illinois is a wonderful place to spend a fall Saturday morning.
From strolls along Lake Michigan to the numerous small shops in town to the crave-worthy bites at Sarkis Cafe or Edzo’s Burger Shop, the suburban Chicago neighborhood offers a perfectly quaint and quiet start to the weekend.
An emphasis on the “quiet” part makes it very unlike almost every other Big Ten town and presents some bizarre challenges for teams coming to face Northwestern. Take the No. 6 Penn State Nittany Lions, who travel to Evanston this Saturday for an 11 a.m. local time kickoff at Ryan Field.
How on Earth is a team that just played its annual white-out game supposed to prepare for that kind of environment in an all-important conference game?
If you’re Penn State coach James Franklin, you try to match the intensity of the Northwestern crowd at practice — or rather lack of intensity.
This week that’s meant the unusual step of actually going through parts of practice without any music playing, The Athletic’s Audrey Snyder, something that’s almost antithetical to how college teams operate.
Penn State practiced without music at the end of practice today to get ready for the Northwestern trip.
Franklin said they have to be honest about the atmosphere. He asked if they’re an internally or externally motivated team.
— Audrey Snyder (@audsnyder4) September 27, 2023
If you just let out the biggest of “oofs” you’re probably not alone. But that also doesn’t mean Franklin is wrong here. Northwestern averaged 28,697 fans at Ryan Field last year — a stadium that seats 47,130 — which was down 2,099 fans from 2021 per HailToPurple.com. Through two home games in 2023, Northwestern is averaging 17,500. Teams typically go off of tickets sold rather than how many people pass through gates to calculate attendance though it’s unclear if Northwestern operates this way.
Judging from the highlights the team posted from last week’s overtime win against Minnesota, there weren’t too many fans who stuck around for the end regardless.
🎬 'Cats. Gophers. Week 4 Cinematic Recap. #GoCats pic.twitter.com/WOQMsTOANe
— Northwestern Football (@NUFBFamily) September 27, 2023
Northwestern has very recent and well-documented issues with both its football program and the stadium it calls home. Neither need to be rehashed here.
So in all seriousness: What else is Franklin supposed to do?
His team has an obvious lull in the schedule (the Nittany Lions play UMass next week before traveling to No. 4 Ohio State) and with playoff aspirations, and even a Heisman campaign, in the balance, the coach has to keep his team focused and prepared.
At the risk of giving the Wildcats bulletin board material, Franklin really had no other choice. A silent portion of practice is probably as close as he can get to recreating what it’ll be like to play in Evanston. Unless he wants to try forcing his players to run drills after eating a Sarkis’ bacon loretta, which speaking from personal experience, is possibly the worst idea of all.
