Illinois’ athletic teams have no true rivals. While this could be attributed to many factors, the two main reasons are location and competition.

Look at our major money programs.

We like to claim Michigan as our football rival, but let’s be honest, Michigan is not our rival. They already have Ohio State, Notre Dame and Michigan State as rivals; we’re not even in their top three.

In basketball, Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan State have all temporarily served time as our rivals, but with the exception of the Spartans, none of them have been consistent enough over the last 10 seasons to be considered legit.

The Spartans are good enough to be seen as rivals, but they’re so far away it’s hard to see the rivalry as anything more than good competition.

Northwestern is Illinois’ closest Big Ten rival, but, again, let’s be honest, Northwestern really isn’t good enough at anything to create a rivalry. It’s hard to have a problem with a team that you beat 80 percent of the time.

Yesterday, the Illinois baseball team beat Illinois State 8-3 at Redbird Field in Bloomington.

The game appeared like it would be a blowout when Illinois (17-16, 4-8 Big Ten) jumped out to an early 6-0 lead, but the Redbirds refused to go away. They scored three runs in the fourth to cut the gap to three and put their first two runners on in the seventh to bring the tying run into the on-deck circle. The runners woke up Illinois reliever Joel Barickman, who then regrouped and escaped the inning with no further damage.

Freshman starter Scott Shaw picked up the win for the Illini by throwing six solid innings, allowing only three runs – one earned – on five hits. Illinois out-hit the Redbirds 12-10.

I think this victory begs the question: Could Illinois start a legitimate rivalry with the Redbirds of ISU?

The two schools are only 50 minutes apart on I-74; they share similar student demographics and are the two most recognizable public universities in the state.

Sure, Northern Illinois may have more students and Southern Illinois might have a better basketball team, but Illinois’ biggest in-state competition should be Illinois State.

Florida has Florida State, Michigan has Michigan State and Oregon even has Oregon State, why can’t Illinois have Illinois State?

I think they can.

Obviously, Illinois State can’t compete with Illinois in football, and it’s highly unlikely that they could create an equally competitive rival in basketball, but that doesn’t mean the games still wouldn’t be entertaining and fun.

As far as baseball is concerned, the rivalry makes perfect sense. Both schools play each other once a year anyway, they have several common opponents and they recruit their players from the same high schools.

But not just that, I think Illinois students and fans need a rival, they need to have a team to despise.

What fun is it to beat a school if they don’t even care?

I know as a U of I student, I’d love to be able to rub it in the faces of my ISU friends whenever we beat them in baseball or kicked their butts in tennis. And I don’t know for sure, but I have a feeling they’d feel the same way.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, even though the Illinois-Illinois State rivalry probably wouldn’t be as big as Duke-North Carolina, it’d definitely be better than what he have right now.

Because I gotta be honest, I can’t get into hatin’ on Northwestern.

Lucas Deal is junior in Communications. He can be reached at [email protected].