In his introductory press conference back in March, Lovie Smith took a page out of former Illinois coach Tim Beckman's book and referred to Northwestern as "the team up North." Now, it's usually never good to take anything out of Beckman's book, but either way, it appears that Lovie is fully embracing the competition for title of "Chicago's Big Ten team."
At Media Day, the soft-spoken Smith ended his statement by saying "we feel like we're Chicago's team." He knew the implications of his words
"We realize there's two teams in our state and both claim that we're Chicago's team," Smith said.