Is anybody here superstitious?

Let’s hope that no one wearing a chin strap or shoulder pads just raised a hand. Why?

Well, in 1982 a Huskie grid squad hit the road to play the team with the longest losing skid in the country. And now, seven years later (yes, seven), almost to the day, the Cardinal and Black again will visit the home of the most frustrated team in the land.

That’s just the beginning of this deja vu stuff.

The 1982 Huskies had a 1-1 record going into the contest. They also had an up-and-coming coach who believed his team was about to “turn the corner” to success. Finally, the team that the NIU squad played on that infamous Saturday was nicknamed the Wildcats and played in a “Big” conference.

All right, maybe I’m reaching a bit here. But let’s admit it, the similarities are there.

In 1982 it was the Wildcats of Northwestern who owned the streak. In 1989 it’s the Wildcats of Kansas State. Northwestern, then losers of 34 in a row, was dropping the standards of high school football to new lows. Kansas State, now carrying on that Wildcat tradition, has found new ways to lose—15 straight times. In fact, the count would be 29 in a row if not for an unfortunate 17-17 tie with Kansas in 1987.

Coach Bill Mallory and his NIU troops stormed Dyche Stadium the third week of the 1982 season, only to suffer the embarrassment of being washed out, 31-6, by the worst team in the nation. Mallory has become quite a coach at Indiana, but I’m sure that breaking other teams’ losing streaks is one distinction current NIU coach Jerry Pettibone would rather not share with Mallory.

So, how do you approach a game like this? That’s two games in a row the Huskies have had to ask themselves this question. A couple of weeks ago against Nebraska, Pettibone was optimistic, but realistic. “This is a great challenge for our players,” he said, not going too far out on a limb.

The truth is that Pettibone knew from his days as an assistant at Oklahoma and Nebraska that the Cornhuskers were too powerful a machine for the Huskies to stop. He must have spent hours thinking about the last words he would say to his players before they took the field in Lincoln. Maybe it was something like, “Hope to see you guys after the game.” Whatever he said worked. The Huskies played the national power head-to-head in the first half before being overpowered in the second.

But now the team faces the opposite situation. Pettibone’s men are going to play a team that hasn’t won since “One Night in Bangkok” was the No. 1 song in the country. I can here Coach P now, “Well, men. Look … uh … don’t lose, OK?”

NIU’s performance on Saturday should tell the Huskie faithful a lot about its team. The goal against Nebraska was to get out of ‘Huskerland healthy. But now the pressure is on.

If the Huskies lose to the Wildcats, few people are going to buy the line about NIU’s having “turned the corner” in football. A loss also could have a dramatic effect on the confidence of the team for the remainder of the season. If the Huskies win a close game, they can always say, “Hey, we played badly and still won—that’s the sign of a good team.” A big win would end the speculation.

Either way, Pettibone might want to carry his lucky rabbit’s foot into KSU Stadium—just in case.