CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- It is championship weekend in college football, and there are a few doozies on the schedule. Top-5 teams Georgia and Alabama meet for the SEC title, Michigan and Iowa face off for the Big Ten championship, and Baylor and Oklahoma State play for the Big 12 title, among others.
But the locally relevant game has the surprising MAC West champion Huskies in Detroit, slight underdogs against MAC East titlists Kent State, one month and one day after a high-powered regular season match-up.
Kent State won that Dec. 3 game, 52-47, thanks largely to a 31-point second quarter in which the Golden Flashes struck on four touchdown drives - none of which took longer than 75 seconds. Northern will have to play better defense against the run - Kent State's Marquez Cooper and Xavier Williams combined for 28 carries and 276 yards on the ground.
But if Rocky Lombardi can repeat his performance, it might not matter. The NIU quarterback became the first in program history to throw for more than 500 yards in a game, hitting 532 and adding three passing touchdowns. Lombardi was hurt late in that game though, on a helmet-to-helmet hit. He played through pain until the Huskies clinched their division a few weeks later, then sat out the regular season finale, an NIU loss to Western Michigan. Lombardi is expected to play in this one.
Winning the division title was a mammoth achievement in its own right, one that earned NIU coach Thomas Hammock a contract extension. The Huskies were expected to finish last in the West, according to the preseason poll - instead, they're bowl bound, and holding a decent chance at the MAC title.
And for pure entertainment, maybe history will repeat itself, not just because of the high-scoring game last month, but because these two programs met in the 2012 MAC title game too. Northern won, 44-37, in double overtime! They don't call it MACtion for nothing.
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