Northwestern won’t get to put a bowl trophy in the case at the Walter Athletic Center this season. They certainly won’t win a Big Ten West division trophy, either.
But the Wildcats have one final shot at earning some hardware on Saturday, when they take on Illinois for the Land of Lincoln Trophy.
It’s been a dark season for the Wildcats, who limp into Champaign with a 3-8 record, but they have a chance to end it on a bright note by beating their in-state rivals. Northwestern is gunning for its seventh straight win over the Illini, who haven’t brought home the coveted Hat since 2014.
That’s a long time in any series, let alone one against a rival.
Head coach Pat Fitzgerald said that beating Illinois is always a big deal to his program, no matter what the Wildcats’ record is going into the contest.
“Any year, you always want to beat your rival,” said Fitzgerald, who is 11-4 against the Illini since taking over in 2006. “It doesn’t matter if you’re in grade school football or high school, college or pro, its’ always a bigger week… It’s always great to win your last game. You send your seniors out the right way.”
This will be Northwestern running back Andrew Clair’s first Land of Lincoln game. But the grad transfer from Bowling Green said that it didn’t take him long to learn about the importance of this annual grudge match.
“I’ve definitely been able to grasp the tension and stuff in the locker room,” said Clair, who is NU’s second-leading rusher with 338 yards. “A rival is a rival. You’ve got to approach that game differently every year, no matter where you are, no matter who you’re going against. It’s just something that you’re taught the first day you walk in through them doors.
“You got to take this game like it’s our bowl game. Like Coach said, a win helps you jump start into next season. It takes you into the offseason feeling better about yourselves. It’s just the legacy here, competing against Illinois and coming out with a win in that game.”
This game is in many ways like the 2019 Illinois game for Northwestern, when the Wildcats went downstate with an abysmal 2-9 record at the tail end of a disappointing season.
This team hopes that they can repeat that outcome. In 2019, the underdog Cats stunned the Illini, 29-10, to claim their only Big Ten win of the season.
“Going back to 2019, we sent the same message,” said safety Coco Azema. “We wanted to send our seniors out the right way. The season didn’t go our way, but we still had the opportunity to send them out with the Land of Lincoln Trophy so that’s the same kind of attitude we have going into this week. We still have one more week to have their career end on a good note.”
Azema will never forget the 2019 game. A true freshman, he spent the year as a backup safety and had played in just three games to that point so he could be redshirted. He was pressed into duty as a running back against the Illini due to a depleted backfield and wound up rushing for a game-high 123 yards and a touchdown on just seven carries as the Wildcats rolled up 378 rushing yards.
“That game was out of nowhere, out of left field,” said Azema. “Last minute, Coach Fitz told me, like, ‘hey, can you play running back?’
“At that point, I was a freshman, I wasn’t really playing that much. I just wanted to get on the field, so of course I can play running back. That was just a fun game. It’s great to look back on it.”
Illini fans would disagree. They haven’t had much to cheer about lately, as the Wildcats have won 17 times in the last 25 years. Northwestern is riding its longest winning streak against Illinois at six and is now within one game of tying the all-time series, which dates back to 1892 (Illinois leads 55-54-5).
Saturday will mark Illinois head coach Brett Bielema’s first Hat game. He will be the fifth Illinois head man Fitzgerald has faced in his career. Fitzgerald welcomes Bielema to the rivalry after getting the better of Illini coaches Ron Zook (3-3), Tim Beckman (2-1), Bill Cubit (1-0) and Lovie Smith (5-0).
Fitzgerald remembers Bielema from his days as Wisconsin’s head coach from 2006-12, when the Badgers beat Northwestern twice in three tries, including an ugly 70-23 beatdown in Madison.
“It’s great to have him back in the league,” said Fitzgerald. “It’s great respect that I have for him.”
But the thing about rivalries is that they stand the test of time, no matter who wears the headset or the helmets. The team’s records won’t count on Saturday. It’s just purple against orange, and for 60 minutes, beating the other team is all that’s on anyone’s mind.
“Nothing else matters,” said Azema. “The season and everything may not have went our way, but it’s a clean slate. It’s rivalry week and we have to beat Illinois, so that’s all that matters right now.”
