It's fitting that in a season of bad breaks and close calls, an act of God played a part in keeping the Northern Illinois football team out of a bowl.
After the 31-21 win over Kent State made the Huskies 5-7 in the final week of the season – along with a series of fortunate events elsewhere in the country – they needed either South Alabama or Louisiana-Lafayette to not pick up their sixth win. If either had lost, the Huskies would have snuck through the bowl backdoor with a losing record because of their strong Academic Progress Rate (APR) and because college football has so many bowls that there wasn't enough non-losing teams to field them for the second year in a row.