Up to 11,000 people will be watching when the Aggie football team opens play in UC Davis' new multiuse stadium on Sept. 1. And, while spectators will be looking down on the sunken field most of the time, you can expect them to look up every now and then, occasionally taking in that old, rusted water tower next to the dairy barn across La Rue Road.

Wait! That old tank is getting a paint job — just in time for the first football season in Aggie Stadium. The tower is not only getting a paint job (complete with the UC Davis logo) but a name (unofficial at this point): Touchdown Tower.

"It seems to be a good fit," said Scott Brayton, assistant athletic director for marketing.

Of course it is a good fit, considering the tower's location. People sitting on the stadium's west side will have a perfect view of the tower. Ditto for the TV crews on the west side.

"We think a lot of the TV cameras will be interested in the tower," Brayton said. And, in the absence of the Goodyear blimp, maybe a television crew will decide to put a camera on the tower.

"We've been affectionately calling it Touchdown Tower since we started leading tours of the new stadium over a year ago," Brayton said.

Touchdown Tower has "a nice ring to it," Brayton said. "There's a lot of interest in it."

And a lot of potential, he added. Other schools have their own touchdown traditions — UC Berkeley, for example, fires the California Victory Cannon after every Cal score. The Aggies might want to consider putting a water cannon atop the tower, and firing a blast into the air after every touchdown, Brayton said.

The 150-foot-tall tower, officially known as Utility Tower No. 1, has no lighting now, other than a red navigational beacon at the top.