As a Badger fan I would say that for about the last five years, our biggest rival, in both football and basketball, is Michigan State. A lot of Wisconsin natives have grown up hating Iowa and Minnesota but recently both their athletic programs have been pretty weak and we’ve sorta owned ‘em (please ignore how Iowa hoops somehow dominated us this year). MSU, on the other hand, has been great since (shortly after) Izzo took over, and their football program has really made a lot of headway in the last 5-10 years as well.

It totally sucked to lose to MSU at the Kohl Center this year with all the stupid clock-out-of-snyc problems, because even though MSU basketball in general has been clearly better than UW with their NC and multiple Final Fours, that was Izzo’s first win at the Kohl Center. Can’t hang that over MSU fans’ heads any more [sigh].

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Clearly we don’t have a true rival as the first person to respond is a Wisconsin fan – one who is not even talking about the Illini in any fashion.
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I think I now know how UCLA now feels about their rivalry with USC in football nowadays….

So you’re saying Pat Fitzgerald is smug…..?

Aw shucks. Maybe you can be our rival.

Most Northwestern fans really don’t give a crap about Illinois because…

1. Most Northwestern alums (myself included) aren’t from Illinois to begin with. Probably less than 20% of NU’s students are from the area, and there just isn’t any familiarity with / connection to Illinois to really drive any animosity. As most alums leave after graduation, as well, there just isn’t any lingering contact to drive hate.
2. Your alums are pretty apathetic in the Chicago area. I work with about 10 Illini within spitting distance of my office, and only one person even has a clue as to what is going on with Illinois football. Most tell me that they’ve only attended one or two games a year when they were a student (more than a few have never seen the inside of Memorial Stadium). With all the crap we take for having a small attendance at Northwestern, I would be willing to wager that at least 90% of underclassmen attend at least five games a year. Football is part of our culture, and while I know those on this site share that passion, a lot of your fellow alums just don’t.
3. It’s not like a loss to Illinois has ever cost us anything meaningful or vice versa. When we’re having a good season, we’ve generally beaten you, and Illinois has generally beaten the ‘Cats during your good seasons. Neither team has really cost the other a B1G title or trip to the Rose Bowl. Hell, we haven’t even really meaningfully bumped eachother in the bowl selection process.
4. The game has never been scheduled on a consistent basis. If it was always the last game of the year, then maybe it could be a last hurrah in an otherwise disappointing season, or a battle for season-ending pecking order, but instead we’ve always had it at different points and it just becomes another game on the schedule.
5. You’re just not prominent in Chicago. Honestly, you gripe about our marketing campaign, but the truth is we’re both behind Notre Dame in the collective attention of the average Chicagoan and quite frankly, Iowa has a much better showing in the region (just look at attendance for the Northern Illinois Soldier Field games).
6. Your program hasn’t been that good. Envy drives hate, and there just isn’t a whole lot to be envious of. You’ve had a couple of good seasons, but the lack of sustained success means that beating you just isn’t all that special.
7. Your traditions suck, and you’re losing them anyway with the whole PC thing going on. I know that many of you are passionate about the Chief, but as an impartial observer (even before I went to NU), the whole dance just kind of looked silly – it was some dude wearing a bad Halloween costume while your band played a slow, somewhat unenthusiastic tune to a slow clap. I know most of the fight songs in the B1G, but I can never remember yours because it’s not memorable. There’s nothing about your gameday environment that I feel like I need to experience. I know, you probably feel the same way about NU, but let’s just say that neither school’s traditions are on the same level as the conference elite.

I know Mr. Beckman is trying to make an identity for this team, but calling out Northwestern has actually been pretty amusing from the other side of the aisle. When Gary Barnett was in a similar situation, he chose to aim a bit higher with Iowa.

As for your hate for Fitz, say what you want about his smugness (which I’m calling BS on – he’s the first to compliment other teams and coaches in the conference), but he took a team last year on a five-game skid (with a lot of hard-fought, close losses in the mix), kept his team motivated, and turned things around to finish the year strong. That coach of yours that you took so much time to tell us was better because he lost to Missouri instead of weaker competition… not so much.

But, if you want to be our rival, OK I guess. Just make sure that your own alums step up their game so it can mean something in return.

So you see Fitzgerald trot out the “we recruit a different kind of athlete” comment, you don’t see any smugness in that?

I really love the “maybe you should set your sights higher” line, yet the insistence that NW is better.

The “set your sights higher” is lose-lose, because if we aim too high, people will laugh at Illinois biting off more than they can chew, but if we aim too low, people laugh at that as well. Regardless, I don’t see Northwestern as aiming too low. The last few games have been fairly comptetive.
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And anyway, there’s also a big poster of the entire schedule in the locker room, and the players all have wristbands that say “12-1-12″ on them, the date of the B10 championship game. So it seems like our sights are set just fine.

@ illini125

You mean the statement that never existed? The one that your own coach made up to show “disrespect” to get his troops fired up? Per the Journal Star…

“Perhaps the Illini were edgy about anything that came out of Evanston, such as the budding perception around Chicago that Northwestern recruited a higher quality of student-athlete.

“I just don’t buy into that,” feisty Illini offensive coordinator Paul Petrino said Tuesday. “It makes me mad. It should make our kids mad. I don’t know what they meant, but I’d say we’ve got a bunch of great kids. By them saying that, they obviously think we don’t have good kids.

“It’s good. We’ll go find out again.”

The statement, no matter where it started, struck a nerve with the Illini.”

I see a whole lot of an Illinois coach talking with no attribution to anything that has come out of Pat Fitzgerald’s mouth.

And for the record, yes, we do recruit a different kind of student-athlete. We have higher admissions standards than most teams not named Duke, Vanderbilt or Stanford – and yes, we take pride in that fact and that is part of what we say about our own program. No, that does not mean that we think the Illini are a bunch of thugs or idiots. We’re just proud of our way of doing things. It’s your own inferiority complex that leads you to different conclusions. Deal with it.

@U-God

Glad to see you migrate over from OTE. At least there’s less Chadnudj here (and yes, he’s a little too sacharin even for me). How about instead of aiming for anyone, the Illini just focus on themselves? And for the record, I’m not saying that Northwestern is better – you’ve beaten us the last two years and you get some respect. I just find Beckman’s comments, and quite frankly Robert’s comments on this site, to be a little bit juvenile / contrived with regard to Northwestern.

@GTom

Been here a while. I’m honestly surprised I haven’t let Chad drive me away from OTE. I’ve had other Illini fans specifically cite him as a reason they avoid the site.

But like Robert said, Beckman comes from schools where rivalries are a huge part of the season. I’d love if this rivalry become something more than just default.

@U-God

Hah! Yeah, I kind of cringe a bit when Chad gets into full gear. He really plays into the stereotype sometimes; but what can you say, he’s full-on 100% ‘Cats enthusiasm all the time. At a minimum, you should be able to get some easy food bets out of him.

I agree that it would be fun to have a rivalry. I’m just hoping it’s because both of our programs are good and we’re competing for titles rather than nut shots, marketing campaigns, new coaches trying to establish an identity, or perceived disrespect.

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Funny that Northwestern is apparently not a rival but their fans are circling like vultures over an Illini blog….

@GrogsBBQPepperoni

First, it’s “Fan”, singular – I’m the only one commenting. Second, I am a fan of all B1G football and college football in general – I regularly read Black Heart Gold Pants (Iowa), Black Shoe Diaries (Penn State), Crimson Quarry (Indiana), EDSBS, MGoBlog, sometimes Hammer & Rails and BoiledSports (Purdue), among others. I happen to think this is one of the better written Illini sites, although I have serious issues with Robert’s writing about Fitz (the one where you compared him to Zook and conveniently left out Zook’s first season was particularly egregious). Third, it’s Illinois week at Off Tackle Empire (where U-God is doing his best to represent – I would encourage more of you to log in), so that prompted me to check in here. Fourth, Mr. Beckman’s comments with regard to NU have been front-and-center as of late. Fifth, it’s a really, really slow day at work and I am quite frankly very bored. Please don’t read too much into this.

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Yes, yes – very good wrath.

Yeah, Robert, I am afraid we are stuck with NW. It would be cool to have a heated rivalry with someone, damn near anyone else, but that’s all we have right now. We will have to beat someone in a Big Game to start anything up. I mean, one of the reasons, ok the only reason, I wanted Mizzou in the BT was be/se they would obviously become our rival.

Now, we have no one. Oh, yeah, we can Clown the Fitz, and that’s fun, but really, who gives a crap about a wanna be Ivy school?

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Having a defined rival doesn’t necessarily mean that much in the grand scheme. I don’t think Penn State has a defined rival and never really has. Notre Dame is similar in that it just has “current event” rivals like FSU when that was a series or Miami when that was a series. I guess they’ll always have USC and that is a decent rivalry but it’s been so lopsided in football lately. But it (a good rivalry) doesn’t mean that much, I think. Almost more of a distraction in some ways.
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I hate NW!! Screw them, screw GTOM! I hate’em!

Couldn’t care less about you come basketball season.

I will always hate Indiana, Iowa and Missou more on the hardwood.

I am just happy, much like Mizzou, NW gives fuel to my fire argument. Never been to the tourney or a BCS game or won a bowl!

Mizzou never been to a FF, a BCS game or won their conference.

Can’t wait to kick your ass on 11/24! What single offensive performance record will we set this year?

* A lot of my NW hate is fueled by their marketing campaign (loved how we shoved that and 519 yards rushing up your pie hole on the Northside!) Fitzee and this site.

Aw Duce20, I love you too! Hugs and kisses.

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Duce20, you bring up a good point. It will never feel like a rivalry in hoops due to the lopsided history (as we aren’t a good rival to UM or OSU or Wisc in football). Ido think it’s becoming a rather chippy affair in football, if not an all-out rivalry, however. There’s no question that the Wrigley game could not have unfolded in a worse manner for them after all of the pageantry and “Chicago’s team” nonsense leading up to the game. Maybe that was the start of something though (again, in football only).

@GrogsBBQPepperoni and @Duce20

In all honesty, I don’t think anybody from the NU side really feels like we did any damage to the brand in that Wrigley game. Quite the opposite, we seem to have gotten some good exposure. Season ticket sales were up the next year, our attendance is up, and we’re still using the “Chicago’s Big Ten Team” in our marketing (and will keep using it – when you open a campus in Chicago, you can use it). If you think we were crying in our beer after that, I hate to disappoint you – although I will absolutely give the Illini credit for playing a solid, physically dominating game (I love how in the middle of the first half after you were clearly running us over, the genius Zook decided to try the passing trick play which essentially got us temporarily back in the game; why did you fire him again?). The fact that you get so worked up about our marketing campaign really reveals more about your own collective concern re: your own irrelevance. As for chippiness, I only seem to recall one side going down that path (Mr. Brown) – the bunch of thugs that you are (I keed, I keed).

Man, I’ve got to troll this site more often! More fun than I expected.

tl;dr

the NU logo thing bothers me. you know what is going to make our program better? winning games. why do the players have bracelets with the date of the B1G championship game on them? are we going to have a big team party to watch the game? because we won’t be playing in it.
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we are a 6-7 win team next year. and that is ABSOLUTELY fine… that’s what our talent is. all the rah, rah “we don’t wear purple” crap and motivational bracelets isn’t going to help us tackle one ball carrier next year. the only team we need to worry about right now is WMU… because they can beat us.
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count me out on NU as a rival. i wonder if we’re worried about the wrong things right now.

GTom, what is going on in your life where you feel compelled to read about Indiana football? Is there anything we can do to help you through it?

As one who attended the 1978 NW-Illinois football game and saw the 0-0 tie (worst game ever!), I’ve never considered NW our “rival”. Incidentally, this tie game was predicted in the “1978 Pigskin Preview” by Playboy Magazine to be a 0-0 tie as they designated this game (before the season began) as the “worst game of the year”, but ah, I digress….

Having a “rival” game means that if we win, it “makes” our season. Beating NW only gives us bragging rights (oops, wrong rival!) in Chicago for a year and nothing else, (certainly no recognition from other fans of any top 25 teams). What good is that? Everybody knows that NW is a 2nd tier – 3rd tier program (in the B10) at best. I say we set our sights higher with a rival that when we beat them, we can tell all, (not just the Chicago nay-sayers).

I say we pick Penn State. They are in our division, and they don’t appear to have a “natural” rivalry within the B10, that Robert and the other posters have discussed. Penn State has been a key game for us ever since they entered the B10. Typically, when we beat them, we have a “good” year (2007 – Rose Bowl year), and when we don’t, they have a “good” year, except for last year, which was all about “Joe Pa” getting his 4xx win (while snoring in the press box). What the H_ _ is a “Nittany Lion” anyway?

Go Illini!

Actually, GTom, Northwestern’s average attendance fell from 36,449 in 2010, when Illinois fans were buying season tickets to get the Wrigley Field game tickets, to 33,442 last year. They are still last in the Big Ten.
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The whole “Chicago’s Big Ten Team” marketing campaign is irksome because everyone knows it’s a lie, and nobody likes lies.

@mattcoldagelli

Well played, sir. I probably do need help, but there’s something about the Hoosiers that I somehow find loveable. Thanks for the offer.

@ hup

Season ticket sales supposedly jumped by several thousand between 2010 and 2011 (rumored to be in the 17,000-18,000 range for 2011 although the department does not release statistics). Keep in mind that seaon ticket sales have historically averaged less than 15,000, so the difference relates to the single-game / walk-up crowd – which is, unfortunately, usually driven by the quality / enthusiasm of the opponent. Many of us would rather see increased Northwestern season tickets as a baramoter of true NU support.

Marketing campaigns are marketing campaigns, and honestly, it’s just a bunch of butthurt on your school’s part to get so upset about it. We’re in Chicago. We’re in the B1G. We advertise our tickets. You can go all territorial if you want, but if you’re really concerned about the few borderline fans that we’re trying to plop in seats, then I feel sorry for you.

Stop telling lies, GTom. Evanston is not in Chicago, it is a near north suburb. Does not Northwestern teach ethics?

Ha! Medical, Law, and Dental school campuses, Hup. We do technically have a foothold, even if our football stadium is nowhere near there.

If NW’s Chicago campaign spurred our DIA to snap into action and start paying more attention there, then we should thank everyone involved.

That’s quite a stretch, GTom. So, are you saying that Chicago’s Big Ten Team consists of medical, law and dental school students, or are you just blurring the line between fact and fiction? Perhaps the next marketing campaign will feature study abroad cities. Quite frankly, I’ve now become quite doubtful of your athletic department’s claim that season tickets jumped by several thousand between 2010 and 2011. It’s no wonder they won’t release statistics.
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Matt, I think Illinois’ new A.D. would have done so regardless of the compass school’s marketing campaign.

The game at Wrigley was a ridiculous, stupid idea. The only thing anyone outside of NU or Illini fans MIGHT remember about it was that there was one end zone.

It was pathetic.

Frankly, aiming so low as to up and declare Northwestern as a rival is fairly pathetic as well. It speaks to trying to convince the ticket-buying public that mediocrity is just as important as contending for a championship.

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GTom, you and your Mildcats are welcome here any time as you have brought me two of my most enjoyable football victories in in recent memory (remember, it’s Illini football we’re talking about and knocking off #1 OSU at their place in 2007 and de-railing their national title hopes is starting to fade just a wee bit).
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I thoroughly enjoyed the 2010 smashmouth run-all-over-em blowout victory in Wrigley. Then to follow it up in 2011 with an against-the-odds 18-point second half comeback was just the icing on the cake. Big smiles for me and my friends. And we couldn’t have done it without the boys in purple. So thanks again!!!!

Robert’s Northwestern hate has always been hilarious to me. It really separates him from other Illini homers. Whereas even most orange kool aid drinking Illini fans would admit Fitz was still a way better coach than Ron Zook….Robert has stuck to his guns and taken such an absurd position that its hard to reckon that with other more reasonable analysis he makes.

Fitzgerald may not be as good of coach as Gary Barnett or Randy Walker, but he’s still kept Northwestern relevant and knows how to win more Big 10 games than Ron Zook ever did. Plus, he does it with much tougher entrance requirements. Not sure why such angst over the “we recruit a different kid” type of stuff…its obious they do. Northwestern’s players are better academically (because they have to be) to gain entrance to that school and play football.

And the attendance argument is dumb and shouldnt even be used as a comparison. Northwestern has an undergrad enrollment of 8,367.

Illinois undergrad enrollment is 31,932.

@EricCLoy I think I disagree with literally every word of your post. If not for the endzone issues I’d be hoping one or both schools would be considering doing Wrigley again, because the environment in and around the game was a total success in every sense of the word.

Being a laughingstock in the national press is a success?

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See what I meant by “fans” – plural, Gtom? You have Joe John as a fellow Northwestern fan.
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And I couldn’t agree more, matt. I went to that Wrigley game. It was an absolute blast and I think a lot of fun for both teams involved. Shoot, the Bears played there for many years. It’s clearly seen a lot of football. And the endzone issues became unremarkable after the first few series.

It made an Illinois-Northwestern game feel like a freaking bowl game. That’s a success.
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And we were hardly a national laughingstock (whoever was laughing wasn’t directing it as much as the individual schools as they were the Big Ten or the situation in general), but even if we were, as soon as Illinois football can afford to turn pick and choose its game-related national attention, you let me know, okay?

Joe John, the only attendance argument has been whether Northwestern’s attendance has been rising or not. Furthermore, your numbers of undergraduate students would be valid if Northwestern marketed themselves as Northwestern’s Big Ten Team. However, since they claim to be Chicago’s Big Ten Team, you must factor in the 3 million residents of the city and 6 million residents in the greater Chicagoland area and compare those numbers to the markets of Big Ten teams with worse records in Bloomington, Champaign, Minneapolis and West Lafayette to see that Northwestern has truly fallen short of their claim.

I like having NW as a rival. I think we should amp it up more. Play more at Wrigley, someone go drape some giant Block I off of a few NW buildings or steal their mascot costume.
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I love rivalries and if Missouri can’t do it because they didn’t join, and Penn State just isn’t a natural fit (along with other B1G teams for various reasons) then let’s make it NW. Let’s turn up the hate between the schools. Someone from Illinois do something to stir this thing up!
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I went to Air Force and the Navy and Army games every year are huge. So much so that I still go to them as much as possible. (Beating Navy at home by one in overtime was so good last year.) I don’t care if AF goes 2-10 every year but if we Sink Navy and Beat Army and take home the Commander In Chief’s Trophy…I’m always stoked!
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So yeah, let’s crank this thing up and make it meaningful. A better rivalry doesn’t seem to be falling into our lap so let’s do it!

It was more of a circus than a bowl game, but differing points of view.

Deciding Northwestern is your rival is like going up to the weakest, most unpopular kid in school and trying to goad him into a fight.

No, its like going to a kid that isnt causing any trouble and just goes along with his business and picking a fight. Northwestern isnt great, but they dont totally suck either. They are a middling team that overachieves given their lack of resources, but never really a threat to dominate so no one thinks about them. If Illinois wants a football rival in the Chicago area that people will care about, put Notre Dame on the schedule and go after them. Of course, that will fly in the face of Robert’s plan to schedule 4 off conference wins a season and magically believe recruiting will pick up since Illinois will be a perennial WeedWacker Bowl participant…didnt work for Minnesota. Isnt and hasnt (judging by recruiting) for Illinois.

JJ is correct in that they are a middling team that overachieves. But who are we to look down on them? We have been good here and there but these past couple years we have ended the regular season with the same record right? Plus, the NW games these past two years have been good wins that helped us to get bowl eligible. I’d say they were pretty important games.
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Let’s just do it, make the game crazy every year. If they are gonna market that they are Chicago’s B1G team then let’s market how we beat Chicago’s B1G team. I am all for this rivalry and how we can at least spin things to get excited about it. Do it MT and TB!
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If we did go out of conference I like the idea of Notre Dame. Maybe MT will schedule non conference things differently.

Even if it was a circus (it wasn’t), that’d be a marked improvement over what every other Illinois-Northwestern game has been, and really, what any of our home games are. If you think the status quo at Memorial Stadium is even remotely close to a good game environment, you’re a part of the problem.
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And everybody thinking we’re somehow above making an effort to stir things up with our in-state rivals is kidding themselves. We’re a total football nonentity. There is literally nothing special about Illinois football. We’re not “too good” to be doing anything, let alone this.