Huskies’ bowl chances improve

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DeKALB – Seven wins doesn’t guarantee a bowl game, even in today’s 34-bowl environment, but it’s a lot better than sitting on six victories.

With its 26-20 win against Ball State on Thursday, Northern Illinois jumped to 7-3, putting itself in better position to snatch a bowl bid.

The Mid-American Conference has three guaranteed bowl tie-ins, the GMAC Bowl, the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl and the International Bowl. As of Friday morning, three MAC teams have seven wins – Temple, Ohio and NIU – and one (Central Michigan) has eight.

At-large opportunities for bowl games will still present themselves, though that muddled picture will become a lot clearer after this weekend’s games.

The Huskies end their season with back-to-back road trips to Ohio and Central Michigan and are still in the race to make it to the MAC Championship game, as NIU sits a game behind the Chippewas in the MAC West standings.

These are all improvements over last season, when the Huskies made it to the Independence Bowl with a 6-6 regular season record and had to sit around and hope for about 10 teams to win or lose to open up a bowl opportunity.

“I’m still thinking about it and it is very surreal,” said quarterback Chandler Harnish, who made his return from injury Thursday after missing three games. “Last year, we won six games and were wondering if we were going to go to a bowl game. We feel good where we are at but we are not satisfied.”

Northern Illinois coach Jerry Kill looked at the team’s seventh win from a broader perspective.

“I think the program is heading in the right direction,” Kill said. “We needed to do better than last season and I think we are heading in that direction.”

A win next Saturday at Ohio would almost certainly guarantee the Huskies a bowl bid and keep their hopes alive for a MAC title.

“We hold everything in front of us again and now we have to go on the road,” Kill said.” We have been able to win a couple on the road, which I think is important that our kids do know how to win on the road.”

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