Who’s Hat? Well right now it’s Northwestern‘s Land of Lincoln hat trophy, but it appears they’ll really have their work cut for them in terms of keeping it. The Illini are receiving votes in the College Football Playoff right now while Northwestern appears to have shut down operations for the season already.
In getting blown out 50-6, by a very mediocre Michigan team, the Wildcats have now been outscored 81-13 in their last two.
SATURDAY, November 30, 11 am CT
Illini at Northwestern | Wrigley Field | Chicago, Ill.
BTN (Chris Vosters, Matt Millen)
WGN Radio 720 (Dave Eanet, Ted Albrecht) Podcast recapping the famous 1 way only Illini vs NU game at Wrigley in 2010
Illini Leather Helmets, Memorial Stadium Museum Northwestern new stadium artist renderings
Illini (8-3, 5-3) Preview
Luke Altmyer is already a legend in Illini history, and he still has eligibility left. He’s a dual threat dynamo, but it’s clear that the pounding he’s taken, all season long, has taken its toll on him.
The Illini obviously don’t want him to be hurt for the Citrus Bowl (or Music City, or wherever they end up). At this point in the season, I can’t help but think of this quote made by Steve Walsh, in relation to New Orleans Saints QB turned tight end Taysom Hill.
“A guy like Taysom Hill is not going to last,” Walsh said to RG. “You’re not going to invest 40 million dollars in a guy and let him run QB power, because those 10 million-dollar linebackers know how to hit you, and they know how to hurt you.
“So you’re just not going to survive.”
Walsh is right, when you have a quarterback who plays the game with cajones (or stones, gravitas, chutzpah, moxie, whichever term you’d prefer to use) like Hill did or Altmyer does now, eventually all those big hits add up.
Altmyer plays the game about as ballsy as it gets, so he’s taken a lot of big hits in 2024. Plus the Illini OL is the weakest link of this team. Run blocking has been up and down, but pass blocking has really seen some very concerning stretches.
Illinois is just 5-10 in LOL Trophy/Hat games, but they are still ahead 57-55 in the all time series.
And if this rivalry has one predictable trend, it’s this- the team having the better season almost always wins.
Yes, strange things, upsets often happen in intrastate rivalry games, but this blood feud has seen mostly chalk. Good news for the Illini as they’re 8 point favorites (with the ESPN Matchup Predictor forecasting an 80% chance of victory) for the Saturday morning clash at 1060 W. Addison.
Northwestern (4-7, 2-6) Preview
Wrigley isn’t working out for the Wildcats, as they are winless in four tries at the Friendly Confines. More alarming is the aggregate score line for the four games. The Illini beat them 48-27 in the infamous one-direction only game in 2010.
Purdue thrashed them 32-14 in 2021, while Iowa beat them last season, 10-7 in a game that was as indeed Brian Ferentz-y as it sounds.
Two weeks ago, Ohio St. blew them out, to the tune of 31-7. That’s a net deficit of -66 in this quartet at the epicenter of Cubslandia.
It doesn’t help that the crowd is always overwhelmingly against them in these games. Once again, the crowd will be with Northwestern’s opponent for this one. Perhaps it’ll be about 80%-20% in favor of the Illini?
This is a longer-term, deeper issue that Northwestern needs to figure out. Whether it’s Wrigley, the now defunct Ryan Field and even the lovely and charming temporary lakeside set up, the road team dominates the crowd for Big Ten games.
Stacking bowl wins hasn’t been enough to change that. Neither was the two division titles, or multiple 10 win seasons. All of that made no positive impact whatsoever in this regard. And in this totally lost season, they should already start to think about what the answer (which I obviously don’t have) could be.
Its been a rough second season for head coach David Braun, but I still like the decision to remove his interim title and elevate him to lead the program.
Prediction: Illini 31, Northwestern 10
Earlier on, NU was doing some decent things defensively, and also in the run game. In the past few weeks, they haven’t actually done much of anything well, and watching them has become less than exciting. Illini will roll early, then pull Altmyer and some other key players in the third quarter.
Paul M. Banks is the Founding Editor of The Sports Bank. He’s also the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He currently contributes to USA Today’s NFL Wires Network, the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America and RG. His past bylines include the New York Daily News, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune. His work has been featured in numerous outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Washington Post and ESPN. You can follow him on Linked In and Twitter.