DeKALB — First-year students at NIU might not have been born when the football team last faced the Illinois State University Redbirds in 2000.
The Huskies will meet the Football Championship Subdivision title-contending Redbirds on Saturday at Huskie Stadium for the 57th time, the most common opponent in NIU football history.
NIU Athletic Director Sean Fraizer said the nearly two decades of time between games was not intentional.
“I wasn’t even aware it was that many years to be perfectly honest,” Fraizer said. “When someone told me it was that length of time I was shocked.