A 7-4 season wasn’t quite what the NIU football team had hoped for, especially after its 3-0 start, but the Huskies did put up a few numbers that nobody could be disappointed with.

For openers, there were the 906 rushing yards accumulated by freshman fullback Adam Dach. Included in that total was the 6-foot, 210 pounder’s single-game high of 146 yards at Minnesota and a 142-yard performance against Western Illinois.

Dach is on target for the Huskie career-rushing record of 3,745 yards; a feat accomplished by fullback Mark Kellar in just three seasons (1971-73).

Another Huskie who moved his way up the NIU record charts was junior inside linebacker Ron Delisi. His 171 tackles this season were the most by an NIU player since 1979 when Frank Lewandoski recorded 173. Delisi was NIU’s game-high tackler six times this season.

He won’t match Lewandoski’s school-record 616 career tackles, but the 5-foot-11, 220-pound Delisi is within striking distance of the No. 2 spot of 471 tackles by Tim Griffin (1982-85). Delisi finished 1988 with 304 tackles in his three years as a Huskie.

Almost lost in the shadow of Delisi was linebacker Mike Higgins, who recorded a team-high 24 tackles at Wisconsin. For the season, Higgins recorded 123 tackles, second only to Delisi, and was the Huskies’ leading tackler in three games.

Making tackles wasn’t the specialty of placekicker John Ivanic, though he did record a couple of takedowns this season, but his kicking statistics were worth mentioning.

Ivanic successfully booted 15 of 19 field goals and converted 12 of 13 extra points. In two years at NIU, Ivanic has made 33 of 43 field goal attempts and 41 of 42 extra points. Twice this season Ivanic kicked clutch game-winning field goals—his 31-yarder with 1:24 remaining at Wisconsin gave the Huskies their first-ever win over a Big Ten Conference team.