The No. 23 team in the nation is in danger of not making a bowl game.

It’s true.

The Huskies are in a bind after last week’s loss to Bowling Green. Even a potential 11-1 season might not be enough for NIU to play a postseason game for the first time since 1983.

NIU, once ranked No. 10 in the BCS standings, quickly dropped out after the loss. Media and fans, who debated that NIU should be in a BCS game if they go undefeated, were kidding themselves.

The reason isn’t the players, the coaching or even the loss itself.

It’s the fans’ fault, quite honestly.

Bowl games aren’t about who deserves to be there – they are about which teams will bring the biggest fan base.

With the success the team has had this year – being ranked in the Top 25 for the first time in school history – the fan support has been fair.

Fair-weather to be exact.

Against Ohio on Oct. 4, the Huskies drew 21,736 people, about 6,500 below a sellout. This was at the time when NIU was No. 16 in the nation.

NIU had its first three sellouts at Huskie Stadium this season, but that’s nothing to be proud of. The sellouts came against Maryland, who was ranked No. 13 at the time, Iowa State, who is a big name school, and Homecoming, where the alumni come out in bunches.

A Top-25 team should sell out every home game; especially a team like the Huskies, which doesn’t see national success like this every year.

Last week when the Huskies needed support more than ever, there were 24,121 fans on Family Weekend.

The game was on TV, which swayed the opinions of many students on whether or not to get up for a 1 p.m. kickoff on a Saturday afternoon.

Since when does an 8-1 nationally ranked team have to worry about just making a bowl game?

If NIU wins out and Bowling Green loses only once, the Huskies will lose the tiebreaker to the Falcons for the MAC Championship Game.

One of the first things that bowl committees look for in selecting a team is how well its fans travel.

If a bowl committee representative were to have come to the Ohio game or the Ball State game, what would convince them to choose an NIU team which can’t fill a 28,000-seat stadium?

Once again, this isn’t anything the players can control. All they can do is keep winning. However, if the fans at NIU continue to be fair-weather, then no one can complain when NIU is sitting at home like all of the students, watching the bowl games.

Had the Illini or Fighting Irish been playing even sub par instead of horrible, say 7-4, they would have a better chance of making a bowl.

We have one more home game against a less-talented Eastern Michigan team on Nov. 22.

If NIU can beat Buffalo and Toledo in the next two weeks, it might be playing for something on Nov. 22.

But don’t assume NIU is guaranteed a bowl appearance by winning out. While NIU is elevating its status as a nationally-recognized program, the fans need to follow suit.