IOWA CITY — No. 19 Iowa football’s north end zone of Kinnick Stadium has been known to cause some chaos for opponents. It stands over 100 feet tall, and it has helped Iowa use its fanbase to help force false starts, among other things.
Iowa fans remember the three-straight false starts against Penn State in 2021, and the many other times back-to-back false starts or delay-of-game penalties caused frustration for Big Ten foes or other nonconference teams.
Only Iowa’s defense knows what the north end zone is truly like. The offense is getting a glimpse of that experience Saturday night.
Northwestern just introduced something very similar to the north end zone in its new Ryan Field: the Wildcat Wall. It’s a European-football style stadium with a 65-percent slope, according to Northwestern’s website, and is filled with 2,000 students all standing on top of the end zone.
“I'm excited to play there, but they do have that student section wall or something, apparently,” offensive lineman Trevor Lauck said. “So it could get loud. But we’re going to have to go on a silent cadence.”
The new Ryan Field won’t be the largest stadium Iowa’s been to this season — that’ll be Michigan Stadium back i...