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Northern Illinois looks to cap off a dream season with a win against a really good Coastal Carolina team

Cure Bowl

Northern Illinois (9–4) vs Coastal Carolina (10–2)

Friday, 6pm, ESPN2

Coastal Carolina -10.5/Total 63.5

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The nightcap on the opening day of Bowl season features a matchup between two teams who had great seasons. Northern Illinois is one of the true Cinderella teams in College Football this year. The Huskies were winless in 2020, but rebounded to shock everyone and win the MAC Championship. Coastal Carolina would’ve been hard pressed to top their magical 2020 season, but they had a great one this year nonetheless. The Chanticleers finished 10–2 with their two losses coming by a total of five points, and the second one coming without their star quarterback Grayson McCall.

Northern Illinois are big underdogs which won’t be daunting to them because that’s the role they’ve played all year. Still, it makes sense in this game. Northern Illinois’ season was as strange as it was special for them. Their first seven conference games were decided by a total of 30 points. They were blown out in the regular season finale, but they were playing without their starting quarterback. They were underdogs in the MAC title game, but absolutely blasted Kent State 41–23. It was their only win over an FBS team by double digits. Their best bet, and perhaps only chance, to win this game is for it to follow a similar script as the MAC Championship Game. Northern Illinois needs to try and play keep away. They ran the ball 61 times and threw it just 15 times against Kent State, doubling the Golden Flashes up on time of possession 40:01 to 19:59. If they can’t sustain drives against Coastal they’re at risk of getting blown out. The Northern Illinois defense has been bad most of the year against the run. They’re 120th in yards per game allowed, 123rd in yards per rush allowed and 128th in EPA per rush allowed. They’re 101st in the country in pass efficiency defense too so they aren’t much better at defending the pass.

There’s a real possibility the Coastal Carolina offense could feast on the NIU defense. The Coastal offense is so efficient they’re fifth in the country in EPA margin despite ranking 59th in the country in EPA defense. The only team with a more efficient offense in terms of EPA is Ohio State. Grayson McCall leads the FBS in passing efficiency. McCall completed 73 percent of his passes and had 23 touchdowns to just three interceptions during the regular season. He suffered an upper body injury and missed two games, but played in the final two games of the regular season and has had three weeks to further get healthy. If he’s throwing the ball, it’s highly likely he’s throwing it to Jaivon Heiligh and Isaiah Likely who combined for 111 catches, almost 2,000 yards and 17 TDs. They can also run the ball effectively with Shermari Jones leading the way with 988 yards and 13 TDs. They aren’t a great defensive unit by any means though. They struggled against the run at times. Appalachian State ran for 228 yards and 5.6 yards per carry in the Mountaineers upset win against the Chants and Texas State ran for 5.9 yards per carry against them. Coastal also struggled to get off the field against Georgia State in an upset loss.

This has been a charmed season for Northern Illinois and it’s hard to bet against them. That said, Coastal Carolina is the second best team they’ve faced this year and it isn’t particularly close (Northern Illinois played Michigan and…it did not go well.) It feels like everything has to go well for them to hang around in this game. I do wonder about the motivation in this game. This has been such a wonderful season for Northern Illinois that there’s probably a great deal of motivation to head from Dekalb down to Orlando and play their best. Coastal Carolina may not be extremely fired up for this game, but if they are it’s hard to see Northern Illinois hanging around.