It didn’t take long for Alex Agase to remember his favorite Illinois-Northwestern game.
“My senior year, we beat ’em 20-0 and went to the Rose Bowl,” Agase recalled.
And that’s how it sometimes has been for Northwestern and Illinois, with the game having relevance for only one team.
Too often, though, both teams have been playing out the string of a disappointing season, as it will be Saturday when they meet for the 100th time in Evanston with the goal of avoiding a last-place finish in the 11-team Big Ten.
Agase has seen the rivalry from both sides as an All-America guard at Illinois in the 1940s and as Northwestern’s head coach in 1964-72.
“It didn’t have the intensity of Michigan-Ohio State or Indiana-Purdue, but it still was a big game and very satisfying for whichever team won,” said Agase, 84, retired in Tarpon Springs, Fla.
Illinois leads the series 51-43-5 and twice has won seven straight. The Wildcats can match their longest winning streak in series history if they win for the fourth consecutive time Saturday.
Northwestern’s victory in Champaign last year helped the Wildcats solidify their berth in the Sun Bowl, but it meant nothing to the Illini, although it served as an introduction to the rivalry for first-year Illinois coach Ron Zook.
“It’s a lot more heated, physical, brutal, than maybe I’d first thought,” Zook said. “We need to make sure this team is ready to play this game.”
In that way, it was typical of many of the meetings. A classic Illinois-Northwestern game, with a Rose Bowl berth on the line and the nation watching, has yet to happen. In fact, dating to 1942, the teams never have met when both were ranked in the Associated Press poll.
“That’s the problem with the rivalry,” said former Northwestern quarterback Brett Basanez. “It’s usually so one-sided, but it could be better than it has been.”
Although neither team knew it at the time, the closest thing to a showdown game may have taken place Oct. 5, 1963, in Champaign, when Northwestern, ranked fourth nationally, took a 1-0 conference record into Illinois’ Big Ten opener. Illinois won 10-9, went on to a No. 3 national ranking and a victory over Washington in the Rose Bowl.
“We thought we would be OK going into the season,” said former Illinois running back Jim Grabowski. “They were the favorites to win the title and they had a lot of good players like [quarterback Tom] Myers. The game made us believe, `Hey, we can be pretty good.'”
To the degree Illinois-Northwestern is a rivalry, it’s fueled by the fact they are in-state neighbors.
“The Northwestern game was kind of claiming the state,” said former Illinois quarterback Kurt Kittner, who grew up in Schaumburg. “It always helps for recruiting purposes, and you want to win in front of your friends and families.”
The fact both are Illinois schools may not mean as much as it did in the early 1970s when Agase was coaching in Evanston and Mike Adamle was his star running back.
“Back then, there were a lot of players on both teams who had played against each other in the Catholic League and other area schools,” said Adamle, a native of Ohio. “Now Northwestern recruits nationally as opposed to regionally, so there might be a handful of players who played against each other in high school.”
Grabowski remembers the rivalry as being more important in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
“There were a lot of guys from Chicago playing,” said Grabowski, who is leaving the Illinois broadcast booth after 28 seasons Saturday. “There were a bunch of guys on Northwestern who went to Lane. And I went to Taft. . . . Now the recruiting is so spread out, and players are coming from all over the country. It’s not the same.”
This year, 20 of Northwestern’s 97 players are from Illinois while 61 of the Illini’s 105 are in-state recruits.
What can be done to make it more of a rivalry? The schools tried playing on Thanksgiving in Champaign in 2001. It didn’t help attendance, which was 45,755, the lowest of the Illini’s four conference home games that season.
“We thought it was fine to play on Thanksgiving,” Kittner said. “But students were home for Thanksgiving and when the game started there weren’t as many fans there. We were kind of disappointed.”
The history of the game is full of such moments. Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald never will forget the 1995 game in Champaign, when the Illini almost spoiled the Wildcats’ stunning run to the Rose Bowl. Eric Collier’s game-clinching interception has taken its place in Northwestern lore.
“[The Illini were off] the week before and they came out with a power-I attack they hadn’t shown before,” Fitzgerald said of the 17-14 victory. “It took us into the second quarter before we settled down.”
Northwestern assistant head coach and former player Jerry Brown remembers the Wildcats’ season-ending 61-23 victory in 2000, which gave them a share of the Big Ten title in Randy Walker’s second season as coach.
“The year before Illinois had beaten us with a significant run-up in points (in a 29-7 triumph) that didn’t have to be put on the board, and I remember [Walker] saying, `The time will come,'” Brown said. “So when we played them in 2000 and we were beating them pretty good, we asked him if he wanted to back off, and he said no.”
Until and unless both teams become contenders simultaneously, the game, at least, will be for the Sweet Sioux Tomahawk Trophy and pride, and maybe one more thing.
“Whichever team wins, I guess they could claim a state championship,” Agase said.
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tabannon@tribune.com
