Carifio: NIU’s Cure Bowl loss to Coastal Carolina went against season-long script for Huskies

The unsuccessful fourth-down play. The costly turnover. The, let’s say weird, sequence from the refs.

It was an off-script performance for the Northern Illinois Huskies in a 47-41 loss to Coastal Carolina in the Cure Bowl, the team’s seventh straight bowl loss. And every time it looked like it was going to get back on script – a big defensive stand, an efficient Rocky Lombardi drive late in a game – something very un-NIU-like would happen.

It was the first single-digit bowl loss since a 21-14 loss to Utah State in the 2014 Poinsettia Bowl. For a while it was going to look like a particularly gut-punching loss, one that the Huskies led 41-33 with 11:51 left in the fourth after a 45-yard field goal by Josh Richardson.

But the Chanticleers (11-2) responded as they had all night with a quick-strike score from Grayson McCall to Isaiah Likely for 40 yards. Jordan Gandy broke up the two-point conversion and NIU clung to a 41-39 lead with the ball.

Then the script changed. The top fourth-down team in the country couldn’t convert. Facing fourth-and-1 on their own 34, the Huskies (9-5) went for it. Lombardi went away from the play like he was going to call a timeout. The ball was snapped anyway, and they couldn’t pick up the yard.

And, of course, everyone and their uncle complained about going for it there. But those people apparently haven’t seen NIU play all year. This is the calling card of the Huskies. Coach Thomas Hammock has called fourth-down attempts in places most coaches wouldn’t try. And it has worked.

It’s the reason the Huskies won so many close games. It’s the reason they are MAC champs. And another four inches and it’s the reason we’d be talking about the team’s first bowl victory since the 2011 season.

It was the absolute right call to go for it given the way the Chants tore up the NIU defense, going for 514 yards. The NIU offense was equally as tough on the Coastal Carolina defense, amassing 516 yards.

But this time it didn’t work for NIU, and on the first play of the next drive McCall found Braydon Bennett for a 34-yard touchdown with 6:40 left.

And on the ensuing drive, Lombardi fumbled after picking up a first down on the ground at the Coastal Carolina 48. Again, very off script for the Huskies.

Of course, an improbable stop for the defense had also been a calling card, and the Huskies came up with a three-and-out thanks to a big tackle of McCall by Lance Deveaux on third down.

So we’re back on script, and the Huskies seemed to follow it on offense. A long drive down the field and a chance to win the game in the closing seconds. It’s how they started the year with a Boneyard win at Georgia Tech. It appeared to be how they were going to close the year and snap a decade-long bowl skid.

But it wasn’t to be as, again let’s say a weird sequence ended the game as Miles Joiner made a sideline catch that was ruled incomplete, then ruled a catch in bounds at the 4. The clock stopped with two seconds left but started running before the ref cleared the center, which isn’t really supposed to happen.

Game over. NIU loses a one-score game.

And there’s plenty to critique the Huskies about in this one. Hammock got away from the run on the last two drives – especially that second-to-last drive when there were still five minutes left in the game. They ran for 335 yards in the game with Jay Ducker (146 yards) and Antario Brown (105) both eclipsing the century mark. Also, Trayvon Rudolph slid on the end of a reverse where if he stood up, he would have picked up the first. Instead it set up a third-and-1, that became a fourth-and-1, that became the controversial choice to go for it.

But that fourth-down call by Hammock was just following a script that led to a successful season that no one outside the NIU locker room saw coming. It was the type of decision that has so many fans and national media members talking about this freshman-laden team as a power for years to come.

One bowl loss that NIU was 4 inches, 4 yards, or 2 seconds of inexplicable clock running from winning doesn’t change any of that.