Rentschler Field

September 25, 2010
Rentschler Field (Capacity: 40,000)
East Hartford, CT
Connecticut Huskies vs Buffalo Bulls
Final Score: 45 – 21

.

This has to be the furthest home football stadium from a school’s campus as instead of going to rural Storrs, Connecticut, I ended up 40 minutes away in East Hartford for a UConn football game. The University is the state’s largest and with no professional team in Connecticut, it also has the largest sports following. Thus, the biggest events for football and basketball are played closer to the state capital and for football, they built a stadium in 2003 where there is more open space in East Hartford. This suburb of 50,000 people is just a functional suburb as it lies a few miles from Hartford across the river. UConn has had a football team for over a century, but recently moved to the Division I-A (FBS) level in 2000. They quickly became a member of the Big East in 2004 and the Huskies have had a tremendous start since their move up. The team has been to four bowl games (3-1) and shared a conference championship in 2007 with West Virginia. Rentschler Field is a stadium that nicely complements the program’s rapid rise.
Prestige Ranking: 3 out of 5

Location

Rentschler Field is actually an old airport for the Pratt & Whitney aircraft company. They donated part of the land for the stadium, so there are still some runaways that you walk and drive on. Definitely a unique setting for a stadium, however the location itself is rather dull as the only thing of note nearby is a Cabela’s hunting store. Downtown Hartford is about 10 minutes away and the city does offer some attractions for visitors.
Location Ranking: 6.5 out of 10

Accessibility / Parking

It is pretty easy to get to the stadium as there are three ways to enter thanks to access roads off of nearby I-84 and Route 2. Everything is well signed both for the stadium and the color-coded parking lots. I came from Willow Street which seemed to have three different names between my GPS, Google Maps and the official website, but as soon as you get on the street, again everything is signed well. In and out traffic was very good and easy for a football game. General parking is located in the Red lots and the parking itself is full of beaten down grass and rocks. These poor lots make for a bumpy, uncomfortable ride to the parking spot that you are directed to. The tailgating for this noon game made for a festive area.
Accessibility / Parking Ranking: 6.5 out of 8

Exterior

The exterior of the stadium has a very appealing design and unlike most football facilities, much of the outside is designed so you are not just looking at the back of the seating bowl. The color scheme is gray with different shades of blue and a good chunk of the outside is taken up by the lightly tinted windows for the inside suite areas. It’s a flat shape with varying small folds and “Rentschler Field” is underlined and spelled out at the top. Also, the school logo is placed on one of the walls.
Exterior Ranking: 7 out of 10

Concourse

There is one main concourse that circles the stadium and it was a little tight, especially at halftime when it got hard to move around (definitely not as wide as what I saw with a comparable newer stadium at UCF last month). Not helping matters are the obstructive, concrete V-shaped beams in the middle of the walkway that support the seats. This, along with the sloped concrete seats overhead, gave a bit of a claustrophobic feel. However, there were features about the concourse that I did like. To go along with a clean look, it is open to the playing field with a row of fans being able to stand and watch (with a nice breeze on this hot day). Additionally, there is an outdoor part of the concourse on the West end that has food stands and a few picnic tables.
Concourse Ranking: 3 out of 5

Food

Food variability here was decent with unique items including chili chowder soup, kielbasa, barbeque pork and turkey wraps. Because this stadium is not on-campus, alcohol was served and there were several mini-stands around selling different kinds of brews.
Food Ranking: 6.5 out of 8

Interior

Rentschler Field’s bowl is split into two decks, with the lower one completely surrounding the field in an octagon shape. The second level is a little more unique in that it has a horseshoe shape using three sides, but it kind of folds down like a flap towards the corners with the sections getting smaller (and consequently swelling a bit in the middle sides allowing for a taller section). It had a slight resemblance to flaps on an airplane, a clever thing given our surroundings. The stands are further than usual from the playing field as there is a lot of grass between the seats and sidelines. Having a tempered incline to the first level of seats doesn’t help matters. Perhaps the most inexcusable part of the stadium is in Row 1 of the upper-level seating. That is where a multi-bar railing obstructs the view so much that the game is unwatchable from that row. Just about all of the seats are bleacher style, grounded into concrete, with the exception being three sections of blue seats on both sides of the 50-yard line. That number of individual chairs is more than most stadiums. Atop one of the sidelines is the three-level press box which stretches between the 10-yard lines and includes a club and 38 luxury suites. There is an open end where the second level stops and this is where the scoreboard is placed very low (in fact, when walking the concourse, you could almost jump and touch it). That open area allows many fans to have a view of the small Hartford skyline in the background.
Interior Ranking: 7 out of 14

Scoreboard

The best part of the scoreboard is the location. It’s gray with the stadium name at the top, an OK-sized video in the middle and an almost too simple score display at the bottom. Ads complete the board and the game/play clock oddly kind of stick out like ears on the side.
Scoreboard Ranking: 2.5 out of 4

Displays

The main display in the stadium is near one of the entrances where the “Connecticut High School Coaches Association Hall of Fame” is. This Hall of Fame honors all of Connecticut’s top high school athletes, coaches and contributors with detailed plaques of their achievement. About six to nine members are added each year and have been since the 70s, plus there is a small room with trophy display cases. Another nice touch that is unique to the stadium is located on the walls facing the field between the decks of seating. Posters that denote Rentschler Field (the airport) history include a picture and a little snippet about the former airfield that existed on the site from 1933-1999. Inside, it’s rare for football stadiums/teams to show off their honors or “banners”, so it was nice to see some attention to team achievements in the Huskies’ short I-A life. On the top left of the press box, are large rectangular banners for bowl games with the year, logo and whether they won. On the right is their 2007 Big East Championship (though it should say “Co”).
Displays Ranking: 4.5 out of 6

Cost

Tickets are moderately priced, ranging between $40 and $60, which seems to be the norm for many Big East teams. Similarly, parking was $12 which is just a tad pricey, though expected. Concessions were the same too, with $7 getting you a 16oz beer or a sausage (hot dogs and cokes were $4, burgers $6). Programs were free.
Cost Ranking: 6.5 out of 8

Fan Support

Attendance numbers have been very good for UConn as they have averaged 95% capacity or better since the stadium has opened. They do rank near the bottom of the Big East in terms of attendance rankings, but that is because they play in a relatively smaller stadium. Despite the nice attendance, there seemed to be a ho-hum approach to the game, as fans were quite tardy. I would say it was about 30% full fifteen minutes before game time, 65% full when players were introduced and maybe 75% at kickoff. They got in, but took their time. It also emptied out fairly quickly (which apparently happens often) by the 4th quarter and was almost completely empty at the final whistle. Never overheard any real football talk from fans.  Good support, but nowhere near the high-end BCS schools.
Fan Support Ranking: 6 out of 8

Atmosphere

The atmosphere was decent as the crowd was moderately loud and fans were reasonably into it. Nothing special, but nothing bad either. Most fans stood during touchdowns, while third-downs featured some spotty standing. Students did a nice job filling up their section in the end zone and the band cranked the fight song. Two of the most common cheers included: “Stick it in, Stick it in, Stick it in” when the offense got inside the 10 (this made me chuckle) and after a Husky score and extra point, the fight song is played with the students chanting U-C-O-N-N.
Atmosphere Ranking: 9.5 out of 14

Other Stuff

More on the railing complaint: My seat was Section 218, Row 1, Seat 1. When I sat down, I cursed my wretched view and ended up searching elsewhere for an unused single seat.

Game

It was an interesting three quarters. UConn jumped out to a 14-0 lead as they scored on the third play of the game thanks to a Jerome Junior pick-six. They looked like they would cruise, but the offense was stagnant and UB’s Jerry Davis was able to get the Bulls offense going as they tied it at 14 by halftime. Apparently, UConn coach Randy Edsall absolutely lit into his team at halftime and a QB switch helped UConn in the third quarter as they pulled out to a 38-21 lead, eventually adding another pick-six to win by 24. Robbie Frey ran for 112 yards and Michael Smith had four big catches for 130 in a game that took forever (3:36) as Buffalo had an absurd 90 offensive plays. If this was a close game it could’ve been four hours long.

Stadium Experience Ranking: 47.5 out of 100