the beautiful northwestern campus eh?

Colleges & Universities Northwestern University
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<p>k&s,</p>

<p>OSU and UMich are schools with great football tradition and large portion of students into football. These two things alone are enough to make them “real” rivalry. Same things can’t be said about Northwestern and IU.</p>

<p>As for Stanford/Cal vs NU/UofI; the following numbers speak for themselves:
2006 attendence:
Cal/Stanford: 72516 (the highest among all of Stanford’s Pac10 games)
Illinois/NU: 22242 (the LOWEST among all of NU’s Big10 games); NU has no real rivalry and this number shows.</p>

<p>UNC/Duke both suck in football (in particular, Duke FB is too painful to watch even for the most loyal fans) . Both schools have great basketball traditions, however, and their students use basketball games as their platform instead.</p>

82

<p>SLee - </p>

<p>I think we are talking in circles.</p>

<p>You were the one who brought up the issue of NU not having a real rival in the context of something other than FB (when you brought up schools like UoC, etc.) while I was talking specifically in the context of FB.</p>

<p>In FB, NU’s main rival is Illinois - which is why the teams compete annually for the Sweet Sioux Tomahawk trophy (tho arguably, many would consider the game against the Badgers to be more of a heated rivalry of late, since the games recently have tended to be real heated and have meaning for either or both teams with regard to bowl games).</p>

<p>With regard to dOSU and UoM - other than FB, they don’t really see each other as rivals (which was why I raised the point of differentiating btwn being FB rivals and being “overall rivals”).</p>

<p>Penn State’s biggest rival in FB historically has been Pitt - they haven’t played each other in years. Who is Wisconisn’s biggest rival, Iowa’s, Purdue’s, etc.?</p>

<p>Granted, the NU/Illini games have lost their luster due to the fact that one or both teams, recently, have had little to play for (it’s been a while since both teams have been good at the same time) - but this will likely change as Zook has recruited some monster classes at UoI (his coaching ability is still in question) and Fitz has done very well with his 1st recruiting class.</p>

<p>As for the Stanford/Cal game - I had already pointed out that not many more Stanford students go to that game (usually about 3,000 or so) than NU students go to Illinois game (about 2,500). </p>

<p>As for the figures you cited - you need to look at them in the proper context.</p>

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<p>Cal had a great season last year (ranked in the top 10 for half the season and top 20 for the other half) - how many in attendance at the Stanford/Cal game do you think were Cal alums/students?</p>

<p>With regard to the NU/Ill game - the lower attendance can be attributed to the fact that Illinois fans stayed away b/c their team stunk (the higher attendance for the other games is attributed to the higher no. of fans from other B10 schools and not NU fans).</p>

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<p>k&s,</p>

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<p>No one here says NU/UofI aren’t <em>official</em> rivals in FB. What I was saying is that relative few students from both schools care about it. For many, the “rivalry” in FB is virtually in name only. Probably many students who don’t follow football much don’t even know NU’s official football rival is U of I!! </p>

<p>The attendence for the Big Game is always high and much larger than NU/UofI regardless whether Stanford or Cal or both have good teams or not. You thought last year was an exception because of Cal being ranked but it wasn’t. In 1997, the attendence was 85,500, Stanford was 5-6 and Cal was 3-8. In 1998, the attendence was 69,000. That year, Stanford was 3-8 while Cal was 6-5. In 2001, Stanford had a good year and was 8-3 while Cal was 1-10; the attendence for the Big Game was 71150 (no sudden spike because of a good year; it’s the rivalry that brought the crowd). </p>

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<p>As I have already mentioned, Cal/Stanford games had good turnout even when both team stunk. On the other hand, in 2005, NU was 7-5, the game against UofI remained one of the lowest of all NU’s games. U of I had a terrible team but the rivalry (hence the incentive upset and to spoil NU’s chance to playoff) should be enough to bring many of their students to attend if they really felt the rivalry. Yet, the attendence was only around 31,000.</p>

84

<p>What does football rivalry have to do with the price of eggs in China? I thought this thread was about the beautiful campus---- the layout and geography? Maybe the debate over rivalries and whether they exist should be a separate post…</p>

85

<p>The thread had changed from campus to campus life at some point. Someone mentioned the “lack of spirit” at NU because he/she saw low attendence at a NU/UofI FB game. It was supposed to be a “rivalry game”. I was just trying to give my explanation for the low attendence. It’s not about lack of spirit; most just don’t see UofI as rivalry in anything, even in FB (even technically it is).</p>

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<p>I’m not saying that NU and Illinois have the same type of rivalry as Cal/Stanford (Cal/Stanford is a rare convergence of geography/academics; UNC fans presently don’t particularly care about beating Duke in FB and dOSU fans presently don’t particularly care about beating UoM in BB), however, more NU students and alums care about the game against Illinois (even when they stink) than they do with games against other B10 teams such as Indiana, MSU, Minnesota, etc. (NU may have had a similar rivalry with UoC if they had stayed in the B10).</p>

<p>The last game at Dyche (now Ryan Field) with an attendance over 50,000 was in 1983 against Illinois.</p>

<p>1n 1996, when the 'Cats were having another excellent season - the only other home sell-out at Dyche besides the Michigan game was against Illinois. </p>

<p>The main thing that has hurt attendance at the Illinois games has been the fact that Illinois has been the worst team in the B10 the past few years - which leads to an 11 am start time (for tv purposes) - which is way too early for tailgating (do people really want to start drinking at 9 in the morning?).</p>

<p>Along the same lines - who do you think NU fans, in general, get more riled up for in BB? Beating a ranked Illinois team or a ranked Purdue, Iowa or MSU team?</p>

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<p>Responding to the original topic:</p>

<p>I loooove everything about the NU campus except for the Sheridan Road… that runs in the middle.</p>