Wrigley Field Football, Northwestern Vs. Illinois: Illini Ground Assault Good For 48-27 Win

On Saturday afternoon, football was played in Wrigley Field for the first time in 40 years, and Illinois running back Mikel LeShoure made the event all the more memorable. His 330 yards on the ground set a school record and propelled the Illini over Big Ten rival Northwestern, 48-27.

The entire Illinois offense, it seemed, preferred to conduct business on the ground. Quarterback Nathan Scheelhaase rushed for 97 yards -- more than doubling his passing yards on the day -- and Jason Ford added another 86 rushing yards to bring the team’s rushing total to 519 yards.

In the third quarter of Saturday’s action at Wrigley Field, the breakneck offensive pace of the game was tempered somewhat, as an Illini touchdown accounted for the only score. Entering the fourth quarter, Illinois leads Northwestern, 34-24.

The touchdown came as quarterback Nathan Scheelhaase connected with A.J. Jenkins for a ten-yard touchdown pass. It was only the sixth completion of the day for Scheelhaase, whose 76 rushing yards dwarf his 40 yards through the air.

On Saturday, Northwestern and Illinois are playing football at Wrigley Field. Judging from the halftime score, though, one would be forgiven for assuming that the two teams are playing basketball.

At the half, Illinois leads Northwestern, 27-24 after a wild thirty minutes. The big story is the show put on thus far by Illini running back Mikel LeShoure, who has already taken the ball 18 times for 208 yards. (The NCAA’s single-game rushing record, in case you’re curious, was set in 1996, when some fellow named LaDainian Tomlinson rushed for 406 yards against UTEP.)

Well, we have seen a team score a touchdown in Wrigley Field’s East end zone, the one with the ivy and the bricks, thanks to a Northwestern pick-six. After Illinois rushed -- with success -- on their first ten plays, they decided to attempt a trick passing play. It failed, as Northwestern’s Brian Peters picked off the ball and ran it all the way back for the score.

After this brief, radical experiment with something called “passing,” Illinois returned to its proven method. Mikel LeShoure picked up right where he left off with a 70-yard run that put the Illini in a first-and-goal situation, and Jason Ford followed up with a short trot into the end zone.

For Saturday’s Northwestern-Illinois game at Wrigley Field, one of the end zones will back up flush against the right-field wall. On Friday, someone finally realized that this is in violation of NCAA rules, as six feet of space is required outside of the back of the end zone. As a result, the decision was made that Northwestern and Illinois will not switch sides at halftime.

The problem is that this, too, apparently violates NCAA rules. An intrepid commenter over Every Day Should Be Saturday, 4.0 Point Stance, explains:

Neither Northwestern nor Illinois are ranked entering Saturday’s game, but simply by virtue of it being a Big Ten rivalry game, it surely makes for a decent draw to begin with. In a clever scheduling move, however, the schools agreed to play this game at Wrigley Field, making it the first time the Friendly Confines has hosted a football game in 40 years.

This curiosity has earned national attention, and if it were televised by the likes of ABC, ESPN, or CBS, it would attract a lot of viewers. And that’s the problem: it’s being broadcast on ESPNU (3:30 p.m.), which many basic cable subscribers don’t have. (Luckily, though this isn’t quite television, the game will be broadcast online at ESPN3 for those who have access.)

Here’s the latest on this morning’s decision to have Northwestern and Illinois share one endzone for Saturday’s Big Ten game at Wrigley Field. First, from ESPN, a timeline on the publicity runup that led to the decision to curb action on the east side of the field:

According to [Illinois spokesman Kent Brown], “The Big Ten was made aware of a rule that says it needs to be 12 feet from the back of the end zone to the barrier.

[...]

There is a bit of a natural assumption when we signed off and said we’d love to play there and we were told that the field fits. I don’t know that anybody looks up that rule until you see [actual the field layout].”

About that rule ... Stewart Mandel raises the question we really want answered; namely, how did this never occur to anyone over the past two years of planning?

SB Nation’s Sippin’ On Purple is collecting clever sign suggestions to take to this weekend’s broadcast of GameDay. Among their favorites:

SB Nation’s Maize N Brew brings their own insouciant take to existing concerns about the dimensions of the football field that’s been constructed for this weekend’s Northwestern-Illinois game: