What do eight Big Ten teams, four Big 12 teams, two ACC teams and one team out of the Big East all have in common?

All of these major conferences had at least one recruit on their lists signed by the little school of Northern Illinois University on Feb. 2.

This year’s recruiting class shows the NIU football program has officially made it. The Huskies have arrived, and it’s time for the MAC to get scared.

With recruits coming from four different states, NIU has gone into the den of major conference schools and come away with the talent they wanted.

These tactics have given NIU the prestige of having this year’s best recruiting class in the MAC, according to Collegefootballnews.com.

The Huskies loaded their success for the future recruiting all around the field. The prospect of the defense, however, is what should have Huskies fans ready for football.

The most enticing of the defense would have to be the secondary – a unit that has two unanimous all-state picks from Illinois in defensive back Jeff Fontana and cornerback Melvin Rice.

Fontana, a strong safety, played high school football for Libertyville, this year’s 7A state champion. Fontana was both a co-captain and team MVP. Both the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune named him to their all-state team.

Melvin Rice, a cornerback from Chicago’s Morgan Park, was ranked the No. 41 corner in the nation by Rivals.com and the No. 46 football player in the Midwest by the Sporting News. He was also tagged the star of NIU’s recruiting class by Collegefootballnews.com.

With senior cornerback Rob Lee and free safety Lionel Hickenbottom’s careers ending, look for Fontana and Rice to be right up there in the hunt for starting spots this fall.

More impressive than their credentials is the potential under coach Joe Novak’s program. With the right coaching system, NIU fans can look forward to the secondary NIU had in 2002 – a combination that made throwing against NIU out of the question.

Adam Grimm could be another big name, with a possibility of being the future of NIU defensive ends.

Grimm is a first team all-state selection in Wisconsin by both the Wisconsin Football Coaches Association and Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

With a great linemen’s name like Grimm, he’s hard to go unnoticed. But Huskies fans will probably have to wait and watch a man who compiled 45 tackles for loss in two seasons redshirt.