In football, it is rare for one play to define a single season. But it happened on Saturday.

NIU, bringing its best team in 20 years to Toledo, had a chance to break a nine-game losing streak against the Rockets and make things a lot more interesting in the MAC West Division Conference Championship race.

Then came the play.

The play that will haunt the players, coaches and fans for the better part of eternity.

After an incredible comeback from a 28-7 halftime deficit, NIU had the momentum and trailed 28-24 with Toledo facing a third down and 33 yards to go.

Before we go any further, let’s put this play into perspective.

Thirty-three yards is nearly one-third of the football field. Toledo really has only six guys who can catch or run with the ball. The linemen are not eligible. So, six guys have to move the ball half the length of the state of Ohio against 11 NIU defenders.

Impossible.

There is no way it can happen. It doesn’t matter if Toledo is playing DeKalb High School. The money is on the defense.

Then it happened.

The NIU defense managed to lose track of a 6-foot-4, 249-pound tight end.

How do you lose a guy that big?

Regardless, it happened.

Toledo’s Andrew Clarke made his way through the NIU secondary and caught a wide-open touchdown pass to give Toledo a 35-24 lead.

The Huskies never recovered.

Just as soon as NIU was back in it, they were out again.

If there was a year for NIU to beat Toledo, this was it.

Toledo’s home-field advantage was nonexistent. The crowd was not loud. There were empty seats all over the place.

The Rockets lost to UNLV in the opening game of the season. Then they got clobbered by Syracuse and Ball State.

Ball State. Yep, we are talking about the same Ball State team that NIU beat bad earlier in the year.

All of this begs the question: Is NIU ready for the big game?

Not the season-opener against Maryland where you have nothing to lose. No, the big game. Not the game on the road where you are 10-point underdogs, like against Alabama.

The real big game that puts trophies in the case and rings on the fingers.

The big conference game.

In the last two years, NIU has had three conference losses.

All of the games meant something. Last year against Toledo, NIU had a chance to wrap up the West Division and pack its bags for Marshall for the MAC Championship Game with a win.

Toledo runs a swing pass to a wide receiver for a touchdown, and Steve Azar misses a field goal from a mile away that gives Toledo the win.

Earlier this season, NIU had Bowling Green and Toledo remaining on the schedule – that’s it. Ball State, Buffalo and Eastern Michigan don’t count. Win those two games and win the conference, a trophy and a ring.

Nope. NIU lost both games by a combined 35 points.

The games were not even close.

It took NIU forever to get over the hump against “big time” schools.

For every Maryland, Alabama and Iowa State, there were plenty of losses against Illinois, Wisconsin and a a slew of other schools.

And those are easier to win than conference games. NIU made believers out of everybody in the early part of the season.

Winning early gives you national recognition and singing auditions on ESPN.

Winning late makes you a champion. NIU will have to wait at least one more year to be the latter.