Humanitarian Bowl, Northern Illinois Vs. Fresno State: Huskies Roll Past Bulldogs, 40-17

There’s only so much that Northern Illinois fans can take away from the Huskies first game without head coach Jerry Kill, who’s headed to Minnesota. After all, interim head coach Tom Matukewicz will give way to permanent replacement Dave Doeren after the game. And bowl games are notoriously bad indicators of a team’s success in the next season.

But the questions now following Northern Illinois into the offseason are whether Doeren can continue the progress of a program that has now set a record for victories in a season (11) and could begin 2011 ranked. Saturday’s win doesn’t completely answer those questions, but it at least provides some reasons for optimism.

As the fourth quarter opens, Fresno State has found its way into Northern Illinois territory, temporarily reviving the very slender hopes the Bulldogs have of rallying to the win. But the drive breaks down on a fourth-down attempt.

The best part of covering postseason college football, hands down, is making jokes about the awesome and horrible and horribawesome gifts the players get. The second-best part is perusing the bowl week marketing materials for wacky events and tiny, poignant hilarities, and the Humanitarian Bowl website is already going to be a clubhouse leader, we can tell.

The organizers are so eager to pad their list of Quick Humanitarian Bowl Facts that they list the administrative assistant’s name as a tidbit of interest. (Shoutout to Tamra, who gets to live someplace with real mountains and work in college football, and whose life we therefore envy.) But what really grabs us is all the beef-related goings-on Northern Illinois and Fresno State were involved with in Boise this week:

Tuesday, December 14th

• 3:00-5:00pm – Certified Angus Bowl for Beef: Westy’s Lanes

Wednesday, December 15th

• MAC Bowl for Beef Dinner

• WAC Bowl for Beef Dinner

See how they snuck bowling into bowl week? That’s a big thing. And the way this is structured, it almost seems like the teams were killing their own game with bowling balls to eat the next night, but that’s probably too much to ask for.

We’re revving our engines for the first day of the 2010 college football postseason. To help prime you for the first, decidedly lackluster slate of games, we’ve compiled this handy list of fun factoids concerning the 2010 Humanitarian Bowl.

Setting: The storied Blue Turf of Bronco Stadium, Boise, Idaho

Traditional conference pairing: WAC vs. MAC

2010 matchup: Northern Illinois (10-3) vs. Fresno State (8-4)

Neatest fact: This one’s billed as the “longest-running cold-weather bowl game,” like other postseason contests in northern climes just aren’t tuff enough to stand the test of time. (In this case, 13 whole years! That’s like forever way up there where stuff can freeze and fall off!)

Closest finish: Fresno State’s 37-34 overtime win over Virginia after the 2003 season.

Most lopsided finish: Georgia Tech’s 52-10 blowout of Tulsa in 2004.

Tidbits of interest: This is the game you used to know and love and revile as the MicronPC Computers Bowl, back in the halcyon days before we had horribler names like PapaJohns.com Bowl to deal with. Also, we’re mere hours from kickoff and ticket prices have yet to be “announced” on the organization website. (Again, though, they do list their administrative assistant’s contact information, so maybe give her a ring and she can set you a price point.)

The 2010 Humanitarian Bowl kicks off at 5:30 p.m. EST, Saturday, December 18. The game will be televised on ESPN. Browse our complete 2010 college football postseason schedule, and connect with Northern Illinois fans at SB Nation’s Red And Black Attack.