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Huskies' 1983 Championship Football Team Returns to Campus

California Bowl and MAC Champions Reunite for 25th Anniversary Celebration



Tim Tyrrell was the first Huskie to win the MAC MVP honor, then called the Jefferson Award.

Oct. 23, 2008

DeKALB, IL --- Those California Bowl boys are back on campus.

Head coach Bill Mallory, Vern Smith Trophy recipient Tim Tyrrell, First-Team All-Mid-American Conference placekicker Vince Scott, and many other members of the fabled 1983 Hall of Fame Northern Illinois University football team return home this Friday and Saturday (Oct. 24-25) to celebrate the 25th anniversary of The Championship Season.

This 25th year reunion features a golf outing Friday morning at Kishwaukee Country Club, a team get-together Friday evening, and halftime recognition at the Northern Illinois-Bowling Green State football game at Huskie Stadium Saturday. Kickoff for the NIU-BGSU contest is set for 3 p.m. (CDT) and tickets are available on-line at www.niuhuskies.com, at the stadium on Saturday and by calling 815-752-6800 or ticketmaster at 312-559-1212.

Inducted into the Northern Illinois Athletics Hall of Fame in 1995, this storied 1983 group wrote a major chapter in Huskie gridiron history. Mallory's team won the program's first and only MAC regular-season title, tied a school record with 10 triumphs in 12 contests, and produced the school's first "major" bowl appearance and victory.

"It was one of the most gratifying seasons," Mallory said in the understatement of the year. "We might not be the fanciest team, but most of the time we find something that will work."

Picked sixth in the official MAC preseason media poll, this Northern Illinois squad started overachieving from Day One --- upsetting Kansas (37-34) in the 1983 opener for the school's initital triumph over the (then) Big Eight Conference. En route to the 10-2 mark and No. 30 spot in the final Associated Press poll, Mallory's Huskies took their first six league games---including a breathtaking 24-23 come-from-behind success over Bowling Green State after trailing 20-0 at halftime.

After a 30-14 setback at Central Michigan, Northern Illinois returned to reality and clinched its first league football crown since 1965 by toppling Toledo (26-10) and Ohio (41-17) at home. With 27 seconds left in the OU win, victory-starved Huskie fans stormed the field. The final gun triggered a mini-Woodstock, a sea of Northern Illinois red. The Huskie Stadium goal posts went down for a MAC record fifth time. Cal Bowl-mania. For the first time since the Mineral Water Bowl 18 years earlier, NIU had a postseason date in a bowl game against Pacific Coast Athletic Association kingpin Cal State Fullerton in California Bowl III at Fresno, CA.

 

 

Behind game MVP Lou Wicks at fullback (career-high 119 rushing yards on 14 carries), Darryl Richardson at tailback (two TD runs), Tyrrell, Scott (two field goals), and others, Northern Illinois bested CSF, 20-13. "America's Most Exciting Bowl" went down to the game's last 35 seconds when cornerback Jeff Sanders chased elusive Titan quarterback Damon Allen out of founds at the Fullerton 48.

By any standard, this Huskie group epitomized success. Ultimately, this Northern Illinois team would produce seven National Football League draft picks, 19 professional players overall, eight All-America selections, and five individual inductees into the school's Hall of Fame. Mallory ranks as the only grid taskmaster in MAC history not only to win league crowns at two schools (Miami in 1973 and NIU in 1983), but to be named MAC Coach of the Year at two programs. In addition, Mallory made the exclusive short list of NCAA Football Bowl Championship (FBS) head coaches who have taken four schools to major bowls. During 1980-83, Mallory's defensive coordinator-linebacker coach was a fellow named Joe Novak.

Tyrrell---one of the best all-purpose quarterbacks in Northern Illinois history, the spiritual leader of the group, and the first NIU individual Hall of Famer from the 1983 team---summed up The Championship Season in only six words. "We were a bunch of overachievers," said Tyrrell, who was the school's first recipient of the Jefferson Trophy (now Vern Smith Trophy) as the league's top player.

For further information on the Cal Bowl III 25-Year Reunion, contact the Huskie Athletic Scholarship Fund office at 815-753-1923.

-NIU-

(MIKE KORCEK, SID Emeritus)