Top 10 Huskies of the Year: #3 Chandler Harnish
May 5, 2011
Leave it to Chandler Harnish to be humble about his success on the football field.
The NIU football quarterback guided his team toward a school-record 11-win season, along with appearances in the MAC Championship and the uDrove Humanitarian Bowl on his way to being named the Northern Star’s No. 3 Huskie of the Year.
And that doesn’t even include his personal accomplishments, including garnering 2010 All-MAC First Team honors. Harnish was also named the Huskies’ Co-Offensive MVP, sharing the award with tailback Chad Spann, finishing with the 11th best quarterback rating in the nation at 157.8.
But it was a collective effort in his opinion for all the success that sprouted last season for himself and NIU.
“It was definitely a team effort,” Harnish said. “It wasn’t me by any means. We played so well as a team.”
A cloud of uncertainty hovered above Harnish before the 2010-11 football season started.
Questions simmered about the dual-threat quarterback’s knee injury he sustained against Toledo in 2009. Plus, Harnish wasn’t even listed as the starting quarterback when the Huskies opened against Iowa State.
Yet after a week-one loss to the Cyclones, a changing of the guard would arise, and Harnish would guide NIU to a school-record 11 victories.
Harnish stated that the 2010-11 run was “a dream season,” yet feels that the Huskies still have unfinished business after suffering a heartbreaking loss to Miami (OH) in the MAC Championship.
With that bad taste still coating his mouth, it will only act as his motivation, as well as his teammates’, to get back to Detroit and accomplish what they couldn’t do this past year.