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International Bowl finalists

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Updated Dec 11, 2009 3:30 AM ET
     
 
Jason Onyebuagu was sitting at the seniors banquet for the Northern Illinois Huskies football team Sunday night wondering whether or not his collegiate career was over. Back in the summer, head coach Jerry Kill had asked his players to get passports in case they were chosen to play in the International Bowl at Toronto's Rogers Centre on Jan. 2, and a 45-31 loss to Central Michigan in their regular-season finale wasn't going to help. So when athletics director Jeff Compher's cellphone rang during his speech at the banquet and he put the device up to the microphone, a surge of excitement went through the room. "At first we were all thinking, 'Man, he forgot to turn it off,"' Onyebuagu, a mountainous 6-foot-2, 307-pound guard, recalled Wednesday. "Then he told us it was bowl selection time and we were on the clock and that it was any minute it could be announced. "I was sitting at the banquet thinking, 'Man, I'd love to play another game in my college career.' And then we get the call it's going to happen and it's in Toronto, everybody was excited." A bad connection only added to the drama for the DeKalb, Ill.-based Huskies, who posted a 7-5 record playing in the Mid-American Conference. Even better news followed with word that they'd play the University of South Florida Bulls (7-5), a Big East team that beat Florida State 17-7 this season. Not only was Northern Illinois, 2-10 in 2007, going to a bowl game, it would get noticed. "It's a great opponent for us," said Kill. "People know who South Florida is. ... I think we all understand that since they've gone into the BCS they've been in five straight bowl games, they're very athletically skilled, it'll be the most speed we face all year. We know we'll have our work cut for us." The Bulls will make that happen. The Tampa-based school looked set for big things after beating the Seminoles for its first victory over one of the state's big three programs - Miami, Florida and Florida State - as part of a 5-0 start to the season. But USF lost five of its final seven games, including a 29-27 loss to Connecticut, to fall into a fourth-place tie with UConn and Rutgers in the conference. The International Bowl offers a chance for some redemption. "We started out 5-0 and we slipped a few times in the Big East and we had a loss last week to Connecticut," said safety Nate Allen, a senior with NFL aspirations. "Our goal is to win the Big East championship but unfortunately we weren't able to do that. The next step is to get into a bowl game." The Huskies have one last item on their to-do list and that's a win over the Bulls in the International Bowl. And after arriving into the sloppy snow and slush covering Toronto on Wednesday, Kill had a request for Rogers Centre staff. "We're going to see if when South Florida is on offence, you'd open up that dome up."
Tagged: Florida State, Northern Illinois, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, South Florida

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