Illinois fans hate Michigan?

They will always have Rocky Harvey.

Bo never lost to Illinois in the early part of his career, and in the late '70s Illinois hired Gary Moeller off of Bo's staff. Moeller was a complete flop and was fired after three years. This completely enraged Bo, who thought Mo got a raw deal. To make matters worse, Illinois hired Mike White to replace Moeller, and Bo apparently had no respect whatsoever for White, and I gather the feeling was mutual. In White's second season in 1981 Bo put an absolute shellacking on Illinois and White in the Big House in a 70-21 victory. White may or may not have been a sleazebag, but he put together a great Illinois team in 1983, beating UM 16-6 and going to the Rose Bowl. There's a story that's been around for years that as a motivational ploy White brought a Wolverine helmet into a pre-game players meeting that was allegedly filled with urine. It was also under White that Illinois acquired a reputation as a dirty team, to the extent that some Michigan people started calling them the "Biting Illini." The wife of a very good friend of mine is an Illinois grad, and she confirms that Illinois fans really do hate Michigan with an intensity that is certainly not reciprocated on our end.

I went to the UM-Illinois game in Champaign-Urbana in 1994 and observed the Michigan hatred first-hand.  As others have said, it was indeed comparable to what you see out of OSU or MSU fans.  I am familiar with the history behind it, but I think it most of their hatred is related to the fact that Michigan doesn't really acknowledge Illinois as a serious rivalry.  If the Spartans are "little brother," then Illinois is "cousin who still wears diapers at age nine."

Illinois was good in the early 80s, then again from 1988-1992.  They never beat Michigan in any of those years except one, 1983, when they played in the Rose Bowl.  My theory is that beating Michigan is for them one of those once-in-long-time wins that marks the very outer boundaries of Illinois fans' hopes and dreams, football-wise.   

I don't know, it seems like everyone hates Michigan except the people who go or went there (and my husband, who went to a small school in Wisconsin). They hate our absolute certainty that we're the best. We're kind of easy to hate because up until now, we haven't been self-effacing. We've just been unyielding in our superiority. If I hadn't gone to Michigan, I probably wouldn't like us either. 

Fortunately, that didn't happen. I'm proud to say the U of M Alumni Association is the only group I've ever officially joined. And MGoBlog. Go Blue! 

Yeah, I just met a girl in grad school that did undergrad at Illinois, and apparently all of her undergrad friends think she's a traitor or something.

I don't think many Big Ten Teams are too fond of us though.

when they mention Michigan being a rivalry game and you start laughing. You know the laugh, the one that begins with a small smile which cannot be contained, eventually turning into a chuckle and then a full fledged, can't stop, can't help myself laugh. A heartfelt laugh at that. I just chalk it up to them being overly sensitive.

Hmm.  I'm waaaaaay late in answering a history question.  But everyone seems to have covered everything.  The hatred goes back to the early 80's.  Gary Moeller, Mike White, Illinois futility against Michigan even when they were cheating, etc.  Bo finished his career 19-1-1 against the Illini.  That didn't sit well with their fans.  And they're still ticked that we knocked them out of the final four in 1989. 

Mike White has been gone for many years but Illinois fans are just as nasty.  Probably the second worst fan base in the Big Ten after Ohio State.  You couldn't pay me to watch a game in Champaign.  Their fans treated Michigan tailgaters so awful several years back before a game that their president wrote UM a letter of apology. 

While on the topic of Bo owning Illinois, here are the Michigan Replay videos from the 70-21 game from 1981 and the 69-13 win from 1986.  Bo made some good points about Illinois making mistakes and us scoring with the second and third stringers but he despised Mike White so much, you know he enjoyed these ass kickings.

Truly, the greatest one sided rivalry in all of sport.

The vitriol spewed by Illinois fans about Michigan is, in my opinion, the result of constantly being lol wut'd by Michigan fans when they attempt to engage in any kind of typical rival fan banter. In their minds, Michigan fans secretly hate them and have come up with this mass "uh, what rivalry?" stance to spite them. It's really kind of fascinating.

You can have some friendly banter with ND fans and Sparty fans and OSU fans, but Illinois fans are thoroughly irrational... if you dare claim not to care about them, they will go off like an effing sparkler. It's something ever Michigan fan should experience. I used to love torturing my (now ex) uncle who went to Illinois... he lived in Columbus and hated us with a passion that few of his Buckeye neighbors could match.

I was grabbing a slice of pizza  somewhere in Wrigleyville after a night of drinking with some friends and  two guys sit at a two seater next to our table.  One guy is wearing an Illinois windbreaker and he is obviously intoxicated.  We start talking football and I casually mention how I thought Notre Dame was an overrated program.  This clown in the Illinois windbreaker takes offense to this comment because he apparently had just gotten accepted to law school at ND.  That was weird enough but then this guy goes on this absurd rant about how Illinois kicked our ass this year and how much Michigan sucked.  I bought up the fact that they have beaten us like three times in last 35 or so years and then we leave the pizzeria.  My friend and I are walking down the street a couple of blocks away when this same asshat in the windbreaker comes sprinting down the street screaming at me about how he was " a former state champion wrestler" and how he was going to kick my ass.  That's when my friend ( who just happens to be in the Army and very good at his job) decides to step in on my behalf.  After my buddy threatened the guy and took off his coat, the Windbreaking Illini casually retreated and even apologized.  

Sean Higgins...

and i don't get it.  I went to the PSU vs IL game in Champaign last year (tix were cheap...imagine that!!).  About 60% of the student section from what I could see were wearing the Illini orange shirt that said "Ann Arbor is a whore" on them.  I couldn't understand it since they were playing(read: getting pounded by) PSU.  Also, I am pretty sure I heard them chanting the Muck Fichigan after the game was over.  They seem to take the anger of getting beat down in all games out towards Michigan.  I am pretty sure there is a term for this (oedipus complex??).

But that was a LONG time ago and most people who remember it are old like me!  The ILLINI's problem is that they are never consistently good to be considered a rival.  But I loved the way Bo got fired up playing them, specially after they fired Mo!

I've been going to UM road games in Champagne for years and never had any problems with their fans.  The IA fans are worse, when I attend UM road games in Iowa City they give me more flack, and at both stadiums I where my UM jersey and M cap!

...for the schools that think we have a rivalry with them.  Something like:

At least 'little brother' gets a nickname.

or

Thanks, but we all ready have a rival.

or

Yuck

Four School

 

I too was taken aback to meet Ilinois alums spewing vitriol.  I was like, Seriously?    And they were knowledgeable about U-M's team, history, and traditions!  Which was surprising, because I could not give less of a crap about their program, and assumed the feeling was mutual.

I have since been schooled on their mysterious belief in a long-standing (but entirely one-sided) Illinois-Michigan rivalry.  There have been many insightful and hilarious things written in the forums about it.

I hate Illinois and I hate their fans.  I have no problem admitting this.  Of course, I was born and raised in Illinois, and 18 years of Illni dumbassery will begin to annoy you over time.

The long and short of it is that Illinois is mostly irrelevant.  The football team sucks, the  basketball team has picked up a perennial knack for playing way under their talent level the last five years (2005 obviously excepted, where, frankly, they played over their talent level), and that leaves them with...wrestling?  Field hockey?  I'm sure they have a program of note, but I've never heard of it.

Their fans, deep down, are aware of their irrelevancy and choose to take out their anger on teams that are traditionally successful, especially teams that routinely curb-stomp them.  Michigan is one of those teams.

There is probably more to it than that though.  There is an annoying under-current in being a Chicago sports fan (I am one) about hating all things Michigan.  I understand the hate for Detroit, geography, competitive teams, blah blah, but putting it on the entire state is absurd.  Not to mention that you rarely hear about Illini fans disliking our favorite irrelevant program, Michigan State.

No, those shirts will never stop being sold, and no, Illini fans will never be able to competently explain to you why they hate Michigan so.  Just pat them on the head and move along.  Not worth our time.

Welcome to Strange Michigan Fan Experience #2594: finding out that Illinois really hates UM a lot.  Sure, many Big 10 fans love to hate on UM, but Illinois fans actually seem to harbor an almost obsessive hatred toward UM, in many cases even considering UM a major rival.  While some people here have had decent experiences with IL fans (btw aren't Iowa fans supposed to be saints??), quite a bunch of people have experienced strong anti-UM sentiment and rude fan behavior from Illinois.  MZone even listed IL as the 3rd-worst fan experience behind OSU and MSU.

I apologize for bumping such an old thread, but I wanted to take the opportunity to explain this from the perspective of a U of I student. I have been following college sports for a while and, growing up in Chicago, always knew that UIUC alums and fans hated Michigan. However, I, like all of you, never knw why. Now that I am a student at U of I, I have not only discovered why you are hated by ILLINI, but I have also found myself despising you as well (sorry). Here are the reasons why UIUC alums and fans don't like UM:

1) No one does. Honestly, you may not know it, but every Big Ten school hates you on the inside. It might be your success, it might be your attitudes, it might be your history; we will leave that to each person to decide. However, it is undeniable that all Big Ten fans reserve a little hatred for the U of M.

2) You are a step above. U of I is one of the best academic institutions in the Big Ten. Northwestern is above everyone, but that is excuseable because they are very different. Madison is about even with us. U of M, on the other hand, is very similar to U of I, but is always one step above. Not so far above that we are separated, but you always have that edge.

3) Rejection. Going along with (but different than) #2, many U of I attendees have been rejected by the University of Michigan.

4) Our friends. Many of us have friends from high school that go to U of M and every trip home and encounter with them is a reminder that U of M is the greatest institution to grace the earth's soil. I ran into a UM student from my HS class over winter break. He asked me how U of I was and I said good. How was Michigan, I asked? "Better."

5) The 80's. There was a considerable amount of competition in the 1980's between our athletic teams in both football and basketball, and chances are that some UM alums from the 80's would consider us a rival as well.

Illiinois is one of those teams that, if you don't live in Illinois, you are not likely to be a fan.  I live in North Carolina and encounter a lot of "fan gear" from a lot of teams.  I have Chem with a guy who loves his Penn State gear, for instance.  I see a lot of Ohio State, Oregon, and a plethora of SEC/ACC teams (naturally).

In my almost 2 decades of Michigan fandom, I've encountered THREE MSU fans and ZERO Illinois fans.  
 

Giving you Michiganders a view from the outside looking in.  Luckily for me, Michigan was dominating the world when I was between the ages of 8-13 and very impressionable.