COMMENTARY

Northern Illinois meets expectations

— The steady drumbeat of buildup to this 79th Orange Bowl was whether lil’ old Northern Illinois “belonged” in a Bowl Championship Series game as big and storied as Tuesday night’s at Sun Life Stadium.

Define “belonged,” I might say if I were being charitable.

There is no doubt the Huskies belonged according to every available poll and survey taken in or around DeKalb, Ill.

There must be considerable doubt now, though, whether Northern Illinois belonged in a BCS bowl if the idea was to field a highly competitive game. But here’s the thing: There were long stretches Tuesday night when it didn’t look like the heavily favored Florida State Seminoles belonged on this stage much more than Northern Illinois did.

Florida State won 31-10, and the game was only as close as it was by a largely unwatchable combination of the losers being hugely overmatched and the winners seeming to have only a casual interest in the outcome.

As appetizers go, this one left us mostly hungry, left us wanting. This was the prelude to next week’s BCS Championship Game between Notre Dame and Alabama in the same stadium, but it was a mostly bad football game that neither gave Northern Illinois the full validation it sought nor appreciably demonstrated that the Seminoles have returned to elite status with their first BCS bowl appearance since 2006.

Bad game?

Country singer Jake Owen performed at halftime and put his spin on the Van Halen song “Jump.” I wished he’d adapted the lyrics to reflect the first half. From “might as well jump!” to “might as well punt!”

Northern Illinois was the first school from the Mid-American Conference ever invited to a BCS bowl and was out to prove that a 12-1 record built against the likes of Toledo and Eastern Michigan would stand up against the best team from the bigger Atlantic Coast Conference.

It didn’t, and if you think it did, blame Florida State’s less-than-powerful performance.

Northern Illinois just did not have the caliber of talent to really compete. Even Northern Illinois’ coach, Rod Carey, had implied as much leading up to the game in trying to explain the chip on his players’ shoulders.

“These guys are recruited from the MAC,” he’d said. “They’re told they’re not good enough to play elsewhere.”

I have my doubts whether Northern Illinois would beat the Miami Hurricanes.

So Northern Illinois came into the game prepared to try everything to make up the shortfall in talent. The Huskies were overmatched, clearly the inferior team, and knew it. Their game plan, their daring, said so. Northern Illinois faked a punt for the first time all season, and pulled it off. It tried an onside kick for the first time, and recovered that, too.

The tricks kept it close for a while.

The loss was as respectable as losses can be, all things considered.

Underdog might be the most casually overused word in sports - most every game in every sport has one, after all - but not quite like this. Not like we saw coming into this game.

You had the feeling the Huskies were playing for more than the good folks back home in DeKalb or the 6,000 or so fans who made a winter vacation of this trip. They were playing for the little guys everywhere. Not just for the underdogs. For the teams told they don’t even belong on the same field. They were playing for anybody who has ever been laughed at or told, “You aren’t good enough.”

The Huskies spent an entire week being asked in various ways if they “belonged.” They could only have been more obviously cast in their role if the players had all carried slingshots as props.

Carey had called Northern Illinois “a well-kept secret” and said “we’re trying to let people in on the secret.”

The fairy-tale ending didn’t happen.

But if you’re asking now, after this game, whether Northern Illinois “belonged” on this stage, I’d say this. College football TV analyst Kirk Herbstreit had said Northern Illinois making a BCS bowl was a “disgrace.” It could have been. It wasn’t.

But neither did it validate the MAC or Northern Illinois.

Sports, Pages 16 on 01/03/2013

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