The following is courtesy of 2017 alum Brian Mann who was in attendance for the opener against Temple.
For those of you who follow Notre Dame Football even remotely, you’re aware that this past Saturday marked the debut of the brand new stadium following the completion of the Campus Crossroads Project. I trekked back out to campus for my first game as an alum and want to talk about the changes brought about by this massive project. Plenty has been written on the specifics since progress first began in November 2014, so I won’t really talk about the actual details. Instead, I want to focus on how these changes have impacted the game day environment at Notre Dame, both good and bad.
Aesthetics
One of the more minor changes that came about as part of the renovation was an improved concourse. The stadium is much easier to navigate due to new and improved signage, both in the concourse and in the stadium itself. Walking around the concourse, it is very obvious where in the stadium you are, as the field location has been painted on the floor, indicating whether you’re in-line with the 30 yard line, midfield, etc. It’s definitely a minor thing, but it was nice to have.
Behind Section 8 inside the stadium.
There are also plenty of aesthetic changes to the concourse, all of which are part of the message of “honoring the House that Rockne built” it would seem. Brick, similar to that of the original stadium, now adorns almost every surface, while banners featuring tickets from games past hang between the section signs. And my lord are there a lot of these banners! In addition to this, there are giant images of in-game action on display. I only saw images from very recent years (e.g. Will Fuller and Jaylon Smith), but it would not surprise me if they had other iconic moments hanging up elsewhere.
Another one of the cooler aspects of the visual changes is what was done with the old wooden benches. Similar to the usage of old tickets on the banners, there are various displays that use the old benches as another way of honoring the history of Notre Dame Stadium. This is a great project that is consistent with the entire theme of the renovation and promotes environmentally friendly practices, too.
Wooden bench feature. Awesome!
This brings us to one of the final changes to the appearance of the stadium, and that is the new benches. Now this one is a little hard for me to write about, as this was the first game since pre-2013 that I haven’t stood for the entire game, but the new benches are obviously an improvement over the old ones, especially because the numbers were supposedly painted wider apart by a whole 2 inches! In all seriousness, though, anytime you go from uncomfortable wood to slightly more comfortable composite, it’s a win.
Also, the Wi-Fi is excellent now, making those Twitter updates much easier to keep track of. All this to say, the renovations I mentioned above are a clear positive. The stadium feels much more modern without abandoning what many fans loved about attending games there. It’s easier to navigate the stadium, there’s lots of cool history on display, and it doesn’t feel like you time-traveled back to the 1990s while watching the game, although maybe you don’t like being able to use your cell phone and this is a negative for you.
Video Board and Gameplay
This is the most important change that everyone wants to know about, though, isn’t it? Did the big screen kill Notre Dame Stadium forever? Does it pollute the purity of the greatest college football stadium of all time? Did they sellout on their beliefs for money?
No, no, and no.
The only way you will think the video board negatively impacts the game day experience is if it’s because it’s different and things that are different are scary. The people who hate the video board probably hated when they started playing night games at Notre Dame and when they added replay reviews and overtime rules to college football in general. The video board is a huge positive. End of story.
During warmups, they highlighted some of the Irish players’ backgrounds. Prior to kickoff, they had video edits that introduced the band. They showed the pregame prayer before the players went to the tunnel. They showed actual highlights and accomplishments instead of reading about them when honoring people during stoppages in play, be it Bob Crable, Ian Cole and Bryan Rust, or Ed Maginn. They had features on players, made relevant stadium announcements, showed fans having fun, and had a number of different graphics during the game to keep the fans engaged.
My personal favorite was when they would show a picture of First Down Moses on first downs. Comedy gold!
The other obvious improvements brought about by the big screen are being able to view replays during the game. Play under review? We get to see that Tony Jones Jr. was down (maybe) before the ball came out! Notre Dame’s safety took a bad angle on a tackle, leading to a Temple touchdown? We all get to watch it again! Brandon Wimbush doesn’t slide on a run? We all get to wince as the big screen shows just how big that hit actually was!
This isn’t to say there weren’t problems, and there are a few changes that, I think, negatively affected game day.
First, there were some coordination issues between the video board operator and the band. For the first Irish Jig of the year, the band was interrupted by something being played on the screen. This kind of interruption is unacceptable, and the student section made its displeasure known. This happened on a few other occasions, too. The band would start playing Everytime We Touch or the Celtic Chant only to be cut off by some sort of video programming. Hopefully issues like this get worked out as more games are played, but it was a little annoying to see the band relegated to second-tier hype duties, which was definitely one of the more reasonable concerns when it came to the video board.
Speaking of the band, both the Notre Dame band and the visiting band now sit in the stands instead of on the field. I’m having a tough time deciding if this is a net negative or simply neutral because the band was moved to the student section to make room for the away team tunnel. I absolutely love the away team tunnel because those guys go marching one-by-one onto and off of the field. Watching them trickle through is a thing of beauty. Such a great addition.
That being said, it led to some awkward moments with half the band not being able to play during songs as they worked their way onto the field to get ready for the halftime performance. This wasn’t a huge issue for the Notre Dame band, but it was definitely a bummer when it came to the Temple band. Temple has a cool fight song and it didn’t get played after their first touchdown because the band was making its way down from the upper level, another issue in my book, to get ready for halftime. Definitely makes it harder for your team to build some momentum when there’s silence after a score. Or maybe that’s the idea.
Either way, I didn’t care for it all that much. Plus, if they’re not on the field, how can Golden Tate jump into their arms? So there were some obvious hiccups in the first game when it came to integrating the video board and the band, but I’m certain these things will get smoothed out as time goes on. Also, they didn’t have a recording of Tim McCarthy make the safe driving announcement, but Joe Theismann appeared on the video board to read it. That is unacceptable in my book and they must return to the one and only teller of puns.
2017 home opener panorama.
Conclusion
So I obviously think that the stadium renovations were a success. There’s plenty to like about the changes because, at the end of the day, you still feel like you’re in Notre Dame Stadium. At least I did. There’s a ton of history to appreciate while walking around the stadium, and you’ll never get lost or be unable to find your friends while doing so. You can keep excellent track of the game if you go to the concession stands due to the plethora of monitors showing the broadcast (supposedly the bathrooms have been improved, too, but being a professional unprofessional, I didn’t think to check them out).
You know if you should heckle the refs after a call thanks to the video board. You can go nuts over replays of Brady Quinn being beautiful and playing beautifully when they inevitably honor him instead of just hearing a list of cool things he did.
Plus, you can get updates on Texas losing to Maryland as it happens instead of finding out after the game. Maybe it’s cause I’m a spoiled millennial and I like to kill things, but I don’t think Notre Dame Stadium has died because of these changes. I think the university has done an excellent job modernizing the game day experience, while still keeping true to what made Notre Dame so many people’s team of choice.
As always: Go Irish! Beat Bulldogs!
I know this guy!
Looking forward to seeing the changes myself at the end of the month. Good writeup, lil brother!
Thank you For this Brian! Great write up!
Great write-up. Everything looked nice on TV; I’m looking forward to seeing it in person. On working out the kinks, I was there in 2011 for the USC game, and they did a *terrible* job playing music – it was way too loud and they played Crazy Train on every frickin’ third down. While they still overplay Crazy Train, things have gotten much better since then, so there’s hope.
On the tradition-wrecking front, I think Crossroads isn’t anywhere near the level of the worst change of the last few years: they should have never changed the requirement that you be a 6’3″ badass to be in Irish Guard (I say this as a 5’9″ non-badass). Now *that* is a change that looks bad on TV.
Thanks for taking the time to read my writeup! It’ll be music to your ears, pun intended, to hear that they only played Crazy Train once!
The best part of the ’11 USC game was the debut of the new helmets. Those things look even better during the day, but seeing them for the first time (so shiny / so gold / so good) was sweet. Looking forward to seeing the new stadium this weekend!
I keep looking for myself in that panorama because I swear that’s exactly where I was sitting.
Regarding the post, nice work! I echo your thoughts completely. I hope they find a different solution for the bands, it’s a logistical nightmare right now and all of the empty seats prior to kickoff and at halftime just looks bizarre at ND Stadium.
IIRC, my Mom’s seats used to be right there too. She retired this year though. It was nice while it lasted (even if i hadn’t gone back for a home game in forever lol).
“supposedly the bathrooms have been improved, too, but being a professional unprofessional, I didn’t think to check them out.”
??? How ??? is ??? that ??? possible ???
#84ozbladder
The bathrooms closest to our section was done last year during a roadtrip, so it changed between home games. I commented at the time that they had done nice job on the bathroom remodels.
Improvements needed:
I’ll try to walk the line of saying that in general the project was overall well done and in general a good idea, but now that it’s in place there are operational improvements that need to be made as possible.
* The first official review wasn’t replayed on the board at all. Let’s not have that happen again.
* During live plays there is a significant (perhaps as much as a second) delay between the action on the field and the display. Other facilities seem to make their closed circuit live action pretty close to live, I’d like to see us get there too.
* The live action plays on the screen were shown somewhat sporadically. I know I wasn’t usually looking at it during play, but I did notice that place kicking attempts weren’t shown live at all. Giving fans without an angle to judge place kicks a view seems like one of the major benefits of the screen, so let’s get on that.
* The video board, PA announcements, and band spent the entire game stepping on and speaking over each other. Those systems need to be integrated and need to have some bias toward allowing the band to continue to be an integral part of the gameday experience. More band, less video.
* The band being moved to the stands has changed their postgame routine of coming onto the field, playing for ten minutes, and marching off. It took most or all of the 10 minutes after the alma mater to get the band on the field after which they just marched off. Let’s figure out how to get them on the field timely for their brief postgame performance.
I’ve heard from here and from others that the band was hard to hear in person overall. I’ve also mentioned that I’d like to hear them more on the TV broadcast as well. Another requested improvement is to get some serious mics on those guys so everyone can hear them, from the TV viewers to the in-game attendees.
“My personal favorite was when they would show a picture of First Down Moses on first downs. Comedy gold!”
That guy is such a freaking ham, isnt he? Way to go, FDM
Brian, I cannot thank you enough for the write up (and Eric, for putting it up for us),
This was exactly what I needed to say while readying for being there Saturday night.
I’ll make sure this gets to the right folks as far as feedback goes.
On the band, let me toss a bit of ___ into the discussion:
– I am a huge fan of the band, in many many ways.
– That said, they had gotten stale in one key aspect, namely helping pump up the crowd to make more noise at key moments.
– Eric had talked about this tendency to staleness in a broader context a month or two ago on an earlier discussion.
– The major but not only contributor has been them playing the Celtic Chant at the wrong moments. The CC is super, the students love to pump their arms, it has a definite role to play, but… when you do it at the precise moment that you want the crowds to be noisy as can be, you by definition silence the loudest voices in the Stadium. Think about it.
– The video board folks know that. I suspect that this was the cause of the conflicts as noted. It will need to be worked out, and I hope to add to that discussion. Nuff sed!
Love this board!!
This is off topic here but anyone else see the story about Douglas Randolph suing the university and BK amongst others for negligence? Lawsuit claims his spine scans were never given to him and team doctor told him to keep playing after suffering a neck injury. He’s since been diagnosed with spinal stenosis. I don’t really remember hearing about this but may have just slipped my mind.