Northwestern’s Smaller Ryan Field Gave Penn State Nowhere to Hide

Northwestern rushed for 413 yards and beat Penn State 34-13 on Friday night in the first game at new Ryan Field. Caleb Komolafe ran for a career-high 188 yards, and Joseph Himon II added 162 yards and two touchdowns.

Penn State coach Matt Campbell said afterward that the Wildcats played the style of game his team wants to play. They led from the first Jackson Kleather field goal and never handed the night back.

Chip Kelly Finally Got the Night He Was Hired For

David Braun named Chip Kelly offensive coordinator on Dec. 30, 2025, and called the hire a program-defining change. Kelly had just called plays at Ohio State on the 2024 national title run, when that offense averaged 36.3 points in four College Football Playoff games.

Friday was the night the hire showed up on the grass. Komolafe carried 25 times for 188 yards and a 1-yard score, 7.5 yards a pop, and added 14 receiving yards for 202 yards from scrimmage. Himon needed 10 carries for 162 yards, 16.2 per attempt, and scored from 38 and 11 yards. Together they accounted for 350 of the 413.

Aidan Chiles, the Michigan State transfer, threw only 14 passes. He completed 10 for 93 yards and kept one from 2 yards, his fifth rushing touchdown of the season. Northwestern’s 506 yards of offense were a season high, and the 93 passing yards tell you how the night was won.

FRIDAY ON THE GROUND

Braun pointed at Kelly’s staff after the win and said the game plan stayed objective even after a 29-23 loss at No. 6 Indiana on Sept. 25, when Komolafe was held to 7 rushing yards. Northwestern had been averaging 146 rushing yards a game. On Friday the Wildcats posted their most rushing yards since 2003, when they ran for 444 on Illinois on Nov. 22, 2003, and the most by any Big Ten team against an FBS opponent this season.

OptaSTATS logged Komolafe and Himon as the first Big Ten duo since 2022 to each rush for at least 160 yards in the same game, the last pair being Michigan’s Donovan Edwards and Blake Corum on Oct. 15, 2022. A flag came out on Himon’s 38-yard touchdown and was picked up. The run stood, and the new building had its first long score.

The New Bowl Seats 35,000 on Purpose

The stadium cost $875 million and holds 35,000, more than 12,000 fewer than the old Ryan Field on the same Central Street site, the smallest football capacity in the Big Ten. Northwestern’s own pitch is that the building is larger and the seating bowl is tighter. Pat Ryan Jr., who led the project for Ryan Sports Development, has sold tours on proximity: no seat more than 136 feet from the field, a 26 percent cut in seats, chair-backs with cupholders, and a canopy over the lot.

THE OPENING-NIGHT HOUSE

• The bet: Fewer seats, closer sightlines, and a sold-out Friday against a team that opened the season at No. 18 in the AP poll.
• The date: Oct. 2, 2026, 100 years to the day after the original stadium hosted its first game in 1926.
• The wait: Northwestern football said it was back on Central Street for the first time in 1,049 days after two seasons at the lakeside Martin Stadium setup.
• The show: A light display in the stands and waves of fireworks and flames before kickoff, with the game on Fox.

On the broadcast the corners still looked thin, the one tell that a 35,000-seat bowl only works if it actually fills after the novelty fades. Down on the sideline the student section was loud enough for Braun to go out of his way to thank it.

The program posted the welcome tape as the gates opened.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL, WELCOME TO RYAN FIELD pic.twitter.com/tZqZ1HrMKB

— Northwestern Football (@NUFBFamily) October 3, 2026

Braun, on the field after the win, did not talk about seat counts. He talked about the noise.

This community? This student section? I mean, this place is electric right now. And I couldn’t be prouder to have the opportunity to lead this program.

David Braun, Northwestern head coach, on Fox

How Northwestern Built a 24-7 Halftime Cushion

Penn State’s defense got one early stop. Linebacker Tony Rojas sacked Chiles for a 9-yard loss on the opening series, and Kleather still drilled a 50-yard field goal at 10:09 of the first quarter, Northwestern’s longest make since David Wasielewski’s 51-yarder against Air Force in 2002.

THE SCORING NIGHT IN EVANSTON

1. 10:09, first quarter: Kleather hits from 50 yards, Northwestern 3-0.
2. 5:07, first quarter: Himon bursts 47 yards, and Chiles finishes from 2 yards, Northwestern 10-0.
3. 10:39, second quarter: Freshman corner Josiah Zayas recovers a fumble at the Northwestern 34, and Hansen scores from 8 yards, Penn State 7-10.
4. 9:21, second quarter: Himon rips 36 yards, then 38 for a touchdown, Northwestern 17-7.
5. 1:55, second quarter: Himon scores from 11 yards after a short field, Northwestern 24-7.
6. 1:13, third quarter: Chiles runs 15 yards and hits Griffin Wilde for 31, and Komolafe punches in from the 1, Northwestern 31-7.
7. 7:53, fourth quarter: Rocco Becht finds Chase Sowell from 16 yards. The 2-point pass fails, Northwestern 31-13.
8. 2:17, fourth quarter: Kleather adds a 37-yard field goal, Northwestern 34-13.

Ryan Barker’s 45-yard try before halftime went wide, so the Nittany Lions took 24-7 into the locker room after being outgained 278 yards to 139 and 237 to 26 on the ground. They would not score again for more than 30 minutes of game time. Kleather missed a second 50-yard attempt in the fourth, then ended it from 37.

Campbell’s Team Lacked the Toughness He Demands

This is Campbell’s first season in Happy Valley, and it is already 0-2 in Big Ten play. On Sept. 26 the Nittany Lions blew a 17-point lead and lost 24-20 to Wisconsin, finishing with 12 first downs and 233 yards. Friday they managed 20 first downs and 291 yards and still left Evanston in a 21-point hole.

First of all, I want to give Northwestern a ton of credit, because they played the style of game that we, obviously, would like to play. They beat us.

Matt Campbell, Penn State head coach, postgame

He went further on the standard he was hired to restore. “We lacked it in every way, shape and form,” he said, listing attitude, effort and toughness. He also said it was hard to find a rhythm on either side of the ball.

Becht completed 26 of 41 passes for 243 yards and the Sowell touchdown and threw two interceptions. Graduate linebacker Braydon Brus took the first, a tipped ball at the Penn State 49 on the opening snap of the fourth quarter. Safety Robert Fitzgerald took the second near midfield in the final minute. Brus finished with nine tackles, a sack and that pick. Kobie McKinzie led Northwestern with 10 tackles.

Campbell kept Becht in the game and said after the loss that he still has great belief in him. The Iowa State transfer had gone 12-for-29 for 114 yards in the Wisconsin collapse. Friday he threw for more than double that and still could not keep Northwestern off the edge.

Penn State Managed 48 Yards on the Ground

Hansen, the Nittany Lions’ leading rusher, finished with 19 yards and the lone rushing score. The rest of the night was dropback football, the exact bind Campbell said they had fallen into against Wisconsin as well. Sowell caught five balls for 68 yards. Brett Eskildsen had six for 45, and tight end Benjamin Brahmer five for 45. That was the passing game. It never slowed the Wildcats’ line.

Rojas posted a career-best 12 tackles, 3.5 for loss and a sack. Kooper Ebel matched a career high with 11 tackles, and defensive tackle Keanu Williams had a personal-best seven. Those numbers sat on the wrong side of 413 rushing yards. Northwestern’s defense, which had given up 271 rushing yards at Indiana, held Penn State to a season-low 48.

Penn State is 3-2. The next test is a White Out against No. 18 USC on Oct. 10 at Beaver Stadium. That is a night built for the standard Campbell keeps naming. Friday in a 35,000-seat bowl, Northwestern was the team that ran downhill.

Ryan Field Opened 100 Years After the First Kickoff

The original house, later called Dyche Stadium and then Ryan Field, hosted its first game on Oct. 2, 1926. Northwestern scheduled this opener for the same calendar date and used a Friday Fox window to show the replacement. Braun had already called Kelly a transformative hire and blamed himself for an offense that had ranked near the bottom of the FBS for a decade. The Wildcats are 3-1 and 1-1 in the Big Ten after beating Penn State for a second straight season.

Kelly said when he took the job that the new stadium would be a major asset. Braun, in the Northwestern recap, called the night something dreams are made of and said the community got him emotional. “We have the opportunity to dream bigger than we ever have before,” he said. “Why wouldn’t you when you get to call this place your home?”

Northwestern hosts Ball State at 11:30 a.m. CT on Oct. 10 for homecoming, the second game in the new bowl. The fireworks will be gone. The 35,000 seats will still be close to the field.