The Stadiums of the Big11Ten: Part 5

ROSS-ADE STADIUM

-Location: West-Lafayette, Indiana
-School: Purdue
-Year Opened: November 22, 1924, with an original seating capacity of 13,500.
-Home Record: 252-147-13.
-Capacity: 62,500
-Largest Crowd: 69,357, in 1970, vs Indiana.
-Big Game(s): 200th win in the stadium vs Michigan in 1996.
-Current/Past Traditions: Boiler Up.

I will never make fun of the "We Are..." chant again.

-Riots: Couldn't find any big football related ones. That's disappointing. Seems there's a lot of tear gas getting thrown around up there, but not many big riots.
-Other Uses: Not much to be found
-Interesting Fact: Concession stands, managed by V/Gladieux Enterprises, Inc., offer a wide selection of food and drinks. Stands outside the stadium open three hours prior to kickoff. In-stadium stands open one and a half hours before kickoff. The End Zone Café, located at the northeast corner of the stadium, provides gourmet coffee and continental breakfast foods, along with stadium fare.
Oh, and some minor three phases renovation that will boost seating significantly.

Purdue, Purdue, Purdue. Every year Purdue is a dark-horse pick to win the Big11Ten, and every year, they're average. Combine the average teams with a relatively small stadium and that doesn't make for a very intimidating scene. By all accounts, Purdue has good crowds at their games, but it's just not a place we would fear going to, but more significantly, no team fears going to. If we were road-tripping to an away game, Purdue would be somewhere between Northwestern and Indiana at the bottom of the depth chart.

OHIO STADIUM

-Location: Columbus, Ohio
-School: Ohio State University
-Year Opened: 1922
-Home Record: 373-104-20
-Capacity: 102,329
-Largest Crowd: 105,708 (Nov. 18, 2006 Ohio State 42, Michigan 39)
-Big Game(s): Any game where the maize and blue is involved.
-Distinguishing Architectural Feature: Double-deck horseshoe design. A bunch of seats that can only see half the field.
-Current/Past Traditions: The dotting of the ‘I’ by the OSU Marching Band
-Riots: Most notably following a 2002 defeat of archrival Michigan. Police used tear gas and made 49 off-campus arrests as large groups burned couches, flipped over cars and generally went on a destructive rampage. THE Ohio State University: always a class act.
-Other Uses: Columbus Crew (MLS 1996-99)
-Interesting Fact: When the stadium was built in 1922, many people scoffed at it’s 66,000 seat capacity. How far we’ve come: Going into last season, the stadium had seen 34 staight crowds of 100,000 or more for football.

Ohio Stadium. Home to the hated Buckeyes and the possibly-even-more-hated sweater vest. If your team is traveling to Columbus to play, it’s usually bad times ahead. We’re not going to lie, we wouldn’t mind if the Lions never had to play there again. It’s one of the great home field advantages in the country, but we’re pretty sure SEC teams would still destroy Ohio State even if the national championship game was played there.

It’s an old stadium, rich with tradition, and there’s not a lot bad we can say about it. Except for the fact that it makes us vomit when we think about it and also that Maurice Clarett once called it home. Even so, we would love to make the trip sometime and bravely sit amongst the sea of red.