By Woodrow Carroll
Due to a bye week, the Northern Illinois football program will have an extra week to savor their 16-14 monster upset of Notre Dame last Saturday in South Bend.
The next game for Northern Illinois will be at home Saturday, Sept. 21 against Buffalo, a Mid-American Conference opener. And, you can be sure the Huskies will get Buffalo’s A-game, now that Northern Illinois has made a name for itself.
So much for scoring first and winning! Much has been made about the Huskies scoring first and winning or falling behind early and losing. Last season when Northern Illinois closed out with a 7-6 overall record, the Northern Illinois Huskies won when scoring first and lost when the opposition got on the board first. So much for that interesting stat. In last Saturday’s game in South Bend, Notre Dame went up 6-0 to open the scoring!
Prior to last Saturday, Northern Illinois’ 19-16 victory over Alabama in 2003 has been held up as the biggest victory in the Huskies’ football history by most. Yet, Alabama was not even the highest ranked team Northern Illinois beat during the 2003 season.
When the Huskies won at Alabama, the Crimson Tide was ranked No. 21. Yet, earlier in the season Northern Illinois defeated No. 15 Maryland, 20-13, in DeKalb, in Northern Illinois’ season opener.
Another interesting point: Maryland is the only Big Ten team ever to play in DeKalb although the Terrapins had yet to join the Big Ten in 2003. So, technically no Big Ten side has played football in DeKalb to this point. Keep in mind that the likes of Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Iowa State, and Utah, among other notable FBS programs, have played in DeKalb in the past. So some quality gridiron names have made their way to DeKalb.
In 2003 there were far fewer bowl games available for even the best of teams. And, that lack of bowl games in 2003 caught up with Northern Illinois at the wrong time.
Northern Illinois was 7-0 and riding high back in 2003 when the Huskies suffered a 34-18 loss at Bowling Green. Even worse was the 49-30 defeat suffered at Toledo a few weeks later leaving the Huskies with two MAC losses on their record. When the 2003 regular season came to an end the Huskies were 10-2. Yet, it was ‘no go’ when the bowl bids were passed out.
If you like stats, here is one to think about. Prior to Northern Illinois’ victory last Saturday, MAC teams were 0-51 against teams ranked in the Top 5 of the polls. Notre Dame was ranked No. 5 in most polls. The MAC is now 1-51 against teams in No. 1-5 slot in the polls.
Were it not for the attention lavished on Northern Illinois, and it was well deserved attention for sure, the University of Illinois’ 23-17 victory over Kansas last Saturday night in Champaign would have gotten more attention.
Although not the underdog that Northern Illinois was, Illinois was a touchdown underdog going up against the No. 19 ranked Kansas Jayhawks. Instead, 10 unanswered fourth quarter points by Illinois were enough to move Illinois to 2-0 for the season.
As nice as the Illinois victory was, the telling figure might have been the 60,670 attendees who showed up at the game. Which was a sellout for Memorial Stadium in Champaign!
For Illinois’ first game of the season against Eastern Illinois, the gate for that game was just under 44,000.
Now that the Illini has moved to 2-0, let’s see what the size of the crowd will be for the home game Saturday Sept. 14, at 11 a.m., against Central Michigan.