DeKalb | Going into this season, football had 11 dog bones on the wall in its locker room at the Yordon Center.

Each dog bone serves as an individual trophy of the Huskies’ victory over a school from the BCS. The dog bone tradition started back in 1983 when the Huskies added their first dog bone to the boneyard with a 37-34 victory.

This season, one of the Huskies’ goals was to add more dog bones to the boneyard. With wins over BCS schools Iowa and Purdue, the Huskies accomplished their goal and upped their dog bone total to 13.

“I think the kids are really happy with it,” said coach Rod Carey. “They put it up there, it’s their goal, they met it.”

This is the first time the Huskies have earned two dog bones in the same season since 2003, when they defeated Maryland, Alabama and Iowa State.

Earning a dog bone is no easy feat for the Huskies as every victory except for two was won in one-score games. The Huskies defeated Kansas State 37-20 in 1989 and the Huskies most recently beat Purdue by 31 points, 55-24.

In their victory over Purdue, the Huskies set a dog bone record with 55 points scored.

In the last two seasons, the Huskies have won three dog bone games and just missed winning a fourth, suffering an 18-17 defeat against Iowa in the opening game last season.

“The dog bone victory was big coming into the year,” said linebacker Michael Santacaterina. “The main reason was because we gave one up last year against Iowa and that hurt. I think coming into this year we just wanted to take care of our non-conference. We thought those were the two biggest games on our non-conference schedule.”