UI Football's Biggest Rival(s)

Final(ish) results:

1. Northwestern Wildcats (61.05%)
2. Iowa Hawkeyes (24.21%)
3. Ohio State Buckeyes (5.26%)


I know now a days they have Minnesota and Iowa, but I think Wisconsin-Illinois would be one of the most natural rivalries in the Big Ten given Packers-Bears and proximity.

Iowa biggest rivalry

Iowa, there fans are the worst. Living in north western Illinois and being separated by the Miss. river there's more Iowa fans in my small town than Illinois. The fans already has a W on the calendar and say they hope there freshmen gets to play by the second quarter.

blmillini said:

I'm with you. I grew up thinking NW would eventually be kicked out of the Big 10 because they were so bad at everything. Even with their recent success I still think of them as the doormat of the Big 10 and it saddens me that we have sunk so far that younger people consider them our biggest rival. I voted for Iowa.

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Yeah, old enough here to remember the Mildcats as the Rutgers of the Big Ten. But I voted for them this time around because, dangit, we need to wipe our feet on them.

Pitbulljim said:

Iowa, there fans are the worst. Living in north western Illinois and being separated by the Miss. river there's more Iowa fans in my small town than Illinois. The fans already has a W on the calendar and say they hope there freshmen gets to play by the second quarter.

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I'm trying to make a "fan map" of Illinois that I think is more accurate than the NYT one ... what town do you live in??

Iowa Biggest rivalry

I live in Fulton, its about 40 miles north of the Quad Cities. The Quad Cities has 2 towns on the Illinois side, the news channels only talk about the Hawkeyes, very seldom Illinois gets a story.

Pitbulljim said:

I live in Fulton, its about 40 miles north of the Quad Cities. The Quad Cities has 2 towns on the Illinois side, the news channels only talk about the Hawkeyes, very seldom Illinois gets a story.

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According to the NYT fan map, Fulton's zip code says it's 32% Iowa, 16% Illinois. Sound about right?

The NYT map is super interesting, but there are huge flaws. For example, I have been to Rockford, I have friends from Rockford and there is just no way that there are more Badgers fans than Illini fans, let alone over double. That's just not true. Additionally, many of the areas in the Chicago area where Illinois is tied with Notre Dame are shaded gray instead of orange, and I bet even the hiring of Lovie Smith pushes us barely over them in several areas (I remember reading an article that the Mets picked up a ton of zip codes on the MLB map from being in the World Series, so this stuff is fluid). Like I said, cool idea, but there are not more Badgers fans in Minneapolis than Gophers fans, as the map suggests; that's literally impossible.

Fighter of the Nightman said:

Like I said, cool idea, but there are not more Badgers fans in Minneapolis than Gophers fans, as the map suggests; that's literally impossible.

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For those not Familiar with the New York Times map, it's based on Facebook likes per ZIP Code: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/03/upshot/ncaa-football-fan-map.html I see a lot of anomalies as well. There are a number of areas where the top three teams likes total only about 30% of the total. And the third place team will be two or three or seven percent. This is partly true in the St. Louis area. There is supposedly a lot of bleed over of Mizzou fan support in the Metro East area. Perhaps. I haven't been there in decades.

Yet if you move from ZIP Code to ZIP Code, although it you'll see a lot of Notre Dame in third place, you'll also see LSU Tigers or Ohio State taking two or three or five percent. In one ZIP Code, Mizuho has support of 47% – make that Facebook likes of 47% – with Illinois at six percent and Texas at four percent. Texas? It seems to me like there's a rather small number of likes, and there wouldn't take many to flip the overall percentage a lot. It would be interesting to see the raw data, but that probably wouldn't make it as good a story, and we wouldn't be talking about it.

And what exactly are people "liking"? What kind of Facebook presence does each team/athletic department have? And are people "liking" one team so that they can get updates on it while still rooting for another team?

All the above said, however, it does suggest that we as a line I need to be greater ambassadors for our team/school. Do you have a ULI license plate frame on your car? Maybe a "Block I" sticker? Come on, folks: name recognition.. Support starts in your driveway.