Brian Bennett, ESPN Staff Writer 10y

Northern Illinois trolls Fighting Illini in ad

Northern Illinois beat Northwestern 23-15 last weekend, after which I wrote that the Huskies have the best football program in the state of Illinois.

The school's alumni group must feel that way, too, judging by this full-page ad in Friday's Chicago Tribune:

Yep, that's Northern Illinois basically taunting both the Wildcats, who like to market themselves as "Chicago's Big Ten Team" (check the reference to that in the ad), and Illinois -- while daring the Illini to play them.

Illinois is 4-0 all-time vs. the Huskies, with the most recent game occurring in 2010. There are no future scheduled meetings between the teams.

Playing an in-state team would have generated a lot more interest than the Illini's first two nonconference games this season, vs. Youngstown State and Western Kentucky. Yet there is very little if any upside to scheduling Northern Illinois -- which also beat Iowa last year and has won 48 games since the start of 2010 -- for any Big Ten team right now.

And the school in DeKalb knows that, which is why it can taunt its Big Ten friends in a newspaper ad.

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