DeKALB – If the top 25 college football teams in the country battled in the classroom instead of on the gridiron, it would be an all-Illinois battle in the national championship, according to one academic study.

Northern Illinois University was second only to Northwestern University in the sixth annual BCS Academic Bowl presented by the New America Foundation’s Education Policy Program. NIU is ranked No. 15 in the final Bowl Championship Series standings while Northwestern is No. 20.

The academic bowl calculates the difference between the entire football team’s graduation rate versus that of the male students at the university; the graduation gap between black and white students on the team versus the same gap among the school’s overall male population; and the gap between the graduation rate of black football players versus the black men at the school.