I don’t remember troughs in the upstairs sections.

Well a few years ago I went to a Georgia game. On each sideline were 4 speakers blasting noise from the PA Announcer….and the BAND. They mic’d their Band so that when they played, you heard it thru all the speakers that lined the sidelines facing the crowd. The band was 5x as loud as when the speakers weren’t on.

I haven’t been in the ND Stadium since the J-Tron went in, but I’m assuming the only noise we’re blasting is the Tron and announcer. Since we have this killer sound system why can’t we mic up our band now and blast their music around? It would make it sound dramatically better on tv and in the stadium. Just a thought.

That said, yes, it’d be nice if it could get as loud as it used to all by itself, but, come on, that’s not happening – and it does not happen like that without a jumbotron anywhere else in the country. As much as many of you guys mock this phrasing, it really isn’t 1988 any more.

Otherwise, overall, I mostly agree with your take. But: how did you not notice that the bathrooms are different? Didn’t they get rid of the troughs? That’s way different!

My stance (having been inside the stadium after the buildings were welded on, but before the screen was installed) is that I wish that ND had followed a model akin to Augusta National (which I acknowledge has had its own issues). However, those making the decisions, rather than embracing the uniqueness of the environment and working to maintain it while adding more subtle items such as the yards to go on the down marker, the TVs at the concession stands, and perhaps the ribbon bands, have repeatedly chosen instead to follow the crowd. Once upon a time Notre Dame made its own way, and worked to demonstrate how things could be done if one endeavored to try to “do better.” No more. Notre Dame since Monk has mistakenly chosen to emulate its aspirational peers, to its detriment. Now get off my lawn.

Nah, I understand the need to expand out from 59k. The number of alums was growing, so either kill some of them (I can think of a couple candidates) or expand the place.

I wish they’d gone with something like the demo Roman did to fully enclose, but….

Now, if they’d kept it as an old brick 59k stadium and eschewed the need to grow I’d like it even better. But I’m an old school cranky dude.