First, it was a win over then-No. 15 Maryland. Then, it was a win at historic, No. 21-ranked Alabama, followed by the first ranking in school history.

The Huskies are 4-0 for the first time since 1965 and are ranked No. 17. But none of that matters, because the team knows the season begins now.

NIU opens its MAC schedule Saturday against Ohio, and the players know that what they’ve done to this point can be gone in a flash.

“The whole MAC schedule, you fight to get into the post-season,” NIU quarterback Josh Haldi said. “We only have two tie-in bowls. We can go 10-2, or last year 8-4, and we don’t go to a bowl game, where a Big 12 school has a tie-in and a team goes 7-6 or 6-6 and they go to a bowl, and maybe we’re just as worthy.”

The Huskies know that last year they were 41 seconds away from being undefeated in the MAC and claiming a bowl spot. This was despite starting the year 1-3 in non-conference games, including a loss to Division I-AA Western Illinois.

“The non-conference games mean nothing,” NIU center Todd Ghilani said. “We proved it last year, we went 1-3 and everyone wrote us off, and thought we were terrible. We rattle off seven wins in a row and turn people’s heads around. We beat Bowling Green when they were No. 16 in the nation. Winning MAC games is all that matters.”

The last two seasons, the Huskies have been MAC co-champs, but haven’t been able to go to a bowl in either season.

NIU comes into its first MAC game of the season as the considerable favorite – 22-point favorites as of Tuesday, to be exact.

NIU coach Joe Novak knows the MAC is the main focus, despite the Huskies’ success.

“We said at the beginning of the year whether we were 4-0 or 0-4, this is the start of our season,” Novak said. “Those other games are certainly important. We wanted to play well, we wanted to win. But this is where our focus is. We’re 0-0 – No. 1 coming up Saturday night.”

The Huskies have played above expectations thus far, but now they will be the hunted by the rest of the MAC.

“Every team is going to be shooting for us,” Haldi said. “I think that now the position we’re at, we make a lot of teams’ seasons if they’re able to knock us off. We know that. We’re going to take everybody the same, play with the same emotion and intensity and see what happens.”