For NIU to succeed at a high level moving forward - and to be sure, NIU could very well do that - skill-position players are going to play more of a role, and the defense will need to raise its game. Lynch averaged 3,000/1,850.įrom a pure stat perspective, there's almost no way for a quarterback to top what Lynch accomplished. Not too long ago, a 2,000/1,000 season (2,000 passing yards, 1,000 rushing yards) was a rather remarkable accomplishment. Jordan Lynch was an all-time stat collector. There was no way NIU could replace Chandler Harnish Players in italics are questionable with injury/suspension. Note: players in bold below are 2014 returnees. They completely dominated.Īnd then they ran into a buzzsaw in the MAC title game, which completely changed the tenor of the season as a whole (and set the table for two fun BCS bowl upsets: UCF over Baylor and Oklahoma over Alabama).Īfter winning 24 of 26 games, Jordan Lynch finished his career with two losses. They averaged more than 7.3 yards per play in both games (after averaging more than 9.0 against EMU and UMass) they averaged 7.8 yards per play and allowed 5.0 in Games No. They absorbed some shots from both teams, then pulled away with no mercy in the second halves. Their back-to-back wins over Ball State and Toledo, by a combined margin of 39 points, were fantastic. Points Per Game (next 6 games): NIU 41.4, Opponent 28.5 (plus-12.9)Įarly near-misses against Idaho and Eastern Illinois led to an air of vulnerability despite an impressive win at Iowa and a blowout of hapless Purdue.īut beginning in mid-October, as conference rivals began to think they might have a shot at ending NIU's long conference win streak, the Huskies laid the hammer down. But after a slow start, this was still an awesome team over the last half of the regular season.Īdj. The speed-over-size defense got pushed around a bit more and spent far less time in opposing backfields. Slow startĭespite solid experience, NIU's 2013 team simply wasn't quite as good as the 2012 Huskies. NIU's program is just about as healthy as a MAC program can be, but the Huskies now have to replace an irreplaceable quarterback. He leaves behind a team that is experienced in most units, and from a recruiting standpoint, the freshmen and redshirt freshmen entering the mix were more highly touted than the ones leaving. ![]() ![]() Lynch was one of the most effective rushing quarterbacks in college football's history and packed four years' worth of stats into two years. These are not things that are supposed to happen. In two years as Northern Illinois' starting quarterback, Jordan Lynch helped the Huskies win 24 games, passed for 6,000 yards, rushed for 3,700, scored 24 touchdowns, passed for 49 more, lost a single MAC game, led NIU to the Orange Bowl, and ended up a Heisman finalist. As good as your favorite players are, they eventually run out of eligibility. It is a fact of life in college football and, to a less rigidly scheduled degree, every other sport. ![]() Confused? Check out the advanced-stats glossary here.
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