MAC West champion Northern Illinois couldn’t finish the regular season on a high note, as division rival Western Michigan prevailed in Kalamazoo on Tuesday.
Northern Illinois had already booked its trip to Detroit as the MAC West champion a week earlier, so the regular-season finale against Western Michigan was critical less for conference jockeying than for keeping alive their longshot bid for the Group of Five spot in a New Year’s Six bowl game. That collapsed entirely as the Huskies sustained their fifth loss of the year in a back-and-forth 28-21 defeat in Kalamazoo on Tuesday night.
Kaleb Eleby was the star for Western Michigan as they pulled off the upset over the division champions. The Broncos quarterback went 19-of-35 for 285 yards through the air against Northern Illinois. Eleby’s arm helped balance out a rushing attack led by Jamauri Bogan, who finished the day with two rushing touchdowns and racked up 63 yards. LeVante Bellamy added another 52 yards on the ground.
NIU quarterback Marcus Childers held everything together for the Huskies offense, keeping in the game in the first half with 121 yards and a touchdown on 9-of-12 passing. In the second half, though, Childers failed to keep up that level of productivity. Childers went only 5-of-9 for 35 yards and two interceptions. His second pick, coming on the first play after Jamauri Bogan punched in the go-ahead score with 1:36 remaining, prevented any chance of pulling level once again.
Thus Western Michigan was able to run out the clock, wrapping up their seventh win of the season. The Broncos held the ball for 10 more minutes than the Huskies, as they limited the opportunities available to generate offense. And three takeaways by the WMU defense allowed the hosts to win the turnover battle on Tuesday.
Though Western Michigan finished with the same overall record as the Huskies, one more conference defeat on their record kept the Broncos locked in second in the division. Now they are left to wait and see what bowl they attend this year.
Northern Illinois, meanwhile, was unable to get past the seven-win threshold. After failing to secure their eighth victory on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, the Huskies no longer have a shot at a 10-win season in 2018.
Rod Carey’s crew now awaits their next opponent for the MAC championship at Ford Field on the first Saturday of December. The Huskies will either play Buffalo, if they win against Bowling Green on the road, or Ohio if the Bulls lose and the Bobcats take down Akron at home. Both teams play on Black Friday, giving Northern Illinois a chance to review what went wrong in Kalamazoo and then celebrate all that went right to make it to Detroit this year.