Illinois and Northwestern are all set to renew their annual, regular-season-ending football rivalry Saturday in Champaign, and the tension is so thick, you could cut it with a plastic spork.
After all, what do the Illini and Wildcats play for if not pure, unadulterated rivalry hate? Oops, sorry, did we say “hate”? We meant hat, as in the Land of Lincoln Trophy. The Wildcats are 9-5 since the schools began playing for The Hat, as it’s known in all its bronze-stovepipe glory, in 2009. Ah, but the Illini have prevailed in the last two meetings by scores of 47-14 and 41-3, their most lopsided wins in the annual series since 1989.
So, who has the upper hand? If we’re being honest, the answer is nobody.
As end-of-November college football rivalries go, Illinois-Northwestern just might be the runt of the litter. Michigan-Ohio State and Alabama-Auburn, it ain’t. Or Oregon-Oregon State, Ole Miss-Mississippi State, Florida-Florida State and Clemson-South Carolina. Or Minnesota-Wisconsin and a bunch of others. You get the idea.
You’ve got a basketball school on one side, and a school that can’t draw fans to its football stadium even when the team is good on the other. You don’t see either the Illini or the Wildcats routinely in play — let alone in down-to-the-wire battles against each other — for the top-ranked recruits in the state. And almost never do both teams come into this game with much of anything at stake. When was the last “big” Hat game? Was it in 2014, when each team was 5-6 and only the winner would get to go bowling? Was it the Wrigley Field game in 2010, when the Wildcats were 7-3 and the Illini — only three years removed from a Rose Bowl season — still needed one more “W” to get into a bowl, any old bowl?
This is the history we’re dealing with. Where did we put that spork?
But this year’s Hat contest is far from being the least interesting of recent vintage. We all know what a strange and special season it has been for Northwestern and head coach David Braun, who are 6-5 and the most surprising of all bowl-eligible teams in the country. Now Braun, who shed the “interim” from his title last week, has a chance to cap one of the best months of his life by knocking the 5-6 Illini out of bowl contention.
One would like to think ending the Illini’s season cold — and on their home turf, no less — would appeal to Braun on a gut level. Because breaking the other team’s hearts — or, better yet, tearing them out and spiking them at the 50-yard line — is supposed to be the ultimate goal in any rivalry. Hate might not have a home here, but tell that to “Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate,” “100 Miles of Hate,” “Modern Day Hate” and “Deeper than Hate,” four college rivalries elsewhere in the country whose names get straight to the point.
“We’ve talked about leaving no doubt and being really proud of the way we finish this regular season,” Braun said, “and this is an opportunity to do that. …
“This team has found ways to consistently improve over the course of the season. We need to do that again this week, be at our best, and there’s incredible motivation for us to bring that trophy back to Evanston.”
It’s not quite William Wallace in “Braveheart,” but it’ll have to do.
When Bret Bielema took the coaching reins at Illinois heading into the 2021 season, one of the first things he discussed with his new players was their six-game losing streak against Northwestern. But Bielema — who needs a win in the worst way Saturday, lest his third season go down as a total flop — doesn’t exactly peel the paint off the walls with his rivalry rhetoric, either.
“Every game is what it is,” he said this week. “To have a Hat trophy game is kind of a cool thing.”
Former Illini coach Tim Beckman at least tried to amp things up, hilariously. Beckman, who was like a sitcom gym teacher come to life, took the job heading into the 2012 season and — in his introductory news conference — pledged never to be seen wearing purple and immediately began referring to Northwestern as “that team up north.” Beckman, you see, had spent some time as an assistant coach at Ohio State, where Woody Hayes was famous for his hatred of Michigan. When Hayes called the Wolverines “that team up north,” it sent chills down fans’ spines. When the silly Beckman called the Wildcats the same thing, it fell flatter than a pancake at Merry Ann’s Diner.
One of the reasons Illinois-Northwestern isn’t saltier is that Bielema and ex-Wildcats coach Pat Fitzgerald are good friends and have been for a long time. Bielema lost his mother and then — just six days later — his father-in-law last November, and the first fellow Big Ten coach he heard from in each case was Fitzgerald. The second time, it was Hat week, but friendship came first. After the game, Bielema couldn’t describe how much Fitzgerald’s calls had meant to him without crying.
Which was lovely. Obviously.
But back to football. Can we get some hate over here?
