New Trier-Evanston football rivalry gets special 2026 setting: Northwestern’s new Ryan Field

The first high school football game ever played at the rebuilt Ryan Field will feature one of the state’s great rivalries.

New Trier will take on its longest-tenured foe Evanston at Northwestern University’s reimagined stadium in Week 9 of this upcoming high school football season, Trevians head coach Brian Doll told The Record.

The two local teams are expected to officially announce the game during a joint press conference the afternoon of Tuesday, May 26.

The Week 9 matchup will be New Trier’s final game of both its 2026 regular season and its conference slate. As reported by The Record earlier this month, the Trevs will play a shorter, three-game conference schedule this year as the Central Suburban League Conference shifts to a three-division structure for football.

Recent showdowns of the historic rivalry have lived up to its billing as the teams have split the last four matchups. New Trier bested the Wildkits in 2025 and 2022, while Evanston came out on top during both the 2024 and 2023 seasons.

According to a schedule posted by New Trier football’s Instagram account, the matchup is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 16, but it was unclear by press time if the Northwestern announcement would change the game’s timing.

As previously reported by Evanston Roundtable, the new Ryan Field is slated to officially open on Friday, Oct. 2, when Northwestern is set to take on Penn State University.

Northwestern’s Oct. 2 evening game will be broadcast nationally on Fox, multiple outlets reported earlier this year. According to the Roundtable, Oct. 2 is also the 100th anniversary of the first game at the first Ryan Field, which opened as Dyche Stadium on Oct. 2, 1926.

The Wildcats will begin their 2026 home schedule with their first two games to be played at Northwestern Medicine Field at Martin Stadium, the university’s facility situated on the shores of Lake Michigan.

University officials first anticipated when construction began in July of 2024 on the $850 million, privately funded new stadium that it would be ready in time for the start of the 2026 season. But, as the Roundtable reported, the timeline has shifted to the completion date of mid-September of this year.

Northwestern announced its intentions to build the new “world-class” venue in the fall of 2022. The project will replace the previous 47,000-seat stadium with a smaller (35,000 seats) but modernized Big Ten football arena.

Check back with The Record for updates to this developing story.

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