NIU-FSU is among the saddest major bowl rematches ever

FSU’s collapse is one thing, but neither of these teams appear capable of offense.

The greatest season in the history of NIU football ended with Jimbo Fisher’s Florida State beating the extremely confident Huskies in 2012’s Orange Bowl, a game that remained competitive longer into the second half than most — including ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit, famously exasperated by the idea of NIU making a BCS bowl — anticipated.

The future was gleaming.

Fisher’s Noles would win the last-ever BCS title 12 months later.

Doeren would get the Power 5 call-up to NC State, but would hand the reins to OC Rod Carey for three more MAC West titles in a row.

Well, now it’s 2018.

To be clear, Florida State takes almost all of the blame for the condition of 2018’s reunion.

FSU is the most disappointing team in the country, a year after being the most disappointing team in the country. The Noles might have the worst offensive line in FBS. They currently rank No. 117 out of 130 teams in Offensive S&P+ and No. 121 in Special Teams S&P+.

NIU could end up being decent, but the Huskies’ all-defense style completely matching FSU’s is what really does it here.

Week 4 opponent NIU ranks worse than FSU in both Offensive and Special Teams S&P+. (Opponent-adjusted stats, btw. Because yeah, they’ve had to play Iowa and Utah, but still.) NIU’s been between bad and average on offense since 2014.

The Huskies have far more of an excuse for their anti-scoring style, given that they’re not a prominent power in arguably football’s most talented state. And they have a really good defense led by legit star power in DE Sutton Smith. Still, they look like a team that dumped all of its experience points into defense, just to see how that goes.

It’s hard to find a sadder rematch of a BCS bowl than this.

I tried.

• Bama’s demolition of Michigan 13 years after 1999’s Orange Bowl was sad, but not at all a surprise, and both teams were at least pretty good (understatement on one side).
• The 2018 edition of USC-Texas is sad because of how incredibly far it fell from 2005’s heights, but we’re still talking about two likely bowl teams who could contend amongst their rivals.
• Florida and Ohio State reuniting in the Gator Bowl five years after their BCS Championship is along the same lines.
• Heck, FSU and Virginia Tech did the BCS-to-Gator reunion within two years, but both teams were still pretty good.
• Washington-Purdue fell from the Rose Bowl to a 7-6 all around Sun Bowl two years later. But again: they both made a bowl.
• Basically the same goes for 2004’s Oregon State-Notre Dame resumption. Oregon State is 2-0 all-time against Notre Dame ICYMI.
• Louisville-Wake Forest hasn’t been all that grand since 2006’s Orange Bowl, but buddy, that’s the WAKEYLEAKS rivalry — that’s more MAD than sad.
• Oregon-Colorado is an option, but one (usually Oregon) or the other (Colorado that one time) team has been good whenever they’ve met since 2001’s Fiesta Bowl.
• Utah and Pitt have reunited twice since 2004’s Fiesta Bowl, but the 2018 mind reels too much from the words “Utah-Pitt Fiesta Bowl” to fully consider whether 2010/2011 were extremely sad. (For Pitt, yes.)
• 2013 Florida-Miami is really tempting. That was the Gators’ 4-8 year. Then again, Miami went 9-4.
• 2015 Nebraska-Miami is a strong contender. The Canes fired Al Golden midseason, and that was the first year of the doomed Mike Riley era. Still! Both teams made bowls!
• 2010 and 2011 Ohio State-Miami are considerations, especially since according to the NCAA’s alternate math, nobody won the 2010 edition.
• Miami-FSU has had some stinkers, but at least one team has always gone bowling.
• LSU and Notre Dame play each other in bowls every year. They have never played anyone besides each other in bowls.

So if making a bowl game is one sign of a non-sad season, can either FSU or NIU turn it around after this?

NIU could very well mess around and win the MAC West yet again thanks to this defense, though S&P+ currently has the Huskies going 5-7.

However, FSU’s FBS-leading bowl streak is all but gone, as the Noles could be underdogs in every game after this one. New head coach Willie Taggart has roughly zero chance of significant improvement before 2019.

And even if both teams do cobble together decent records, they’ll likely do so while scoring roughly N/A points per game.