The so-called Sports Illustrated curse almost worked its evil magic on the NIU football team Saturday at Huskie Stadium.

If a team or player is in Sports Illustrated, it is not uncommon to see the player get injured or the team lose a big game.

SI senior writer Tim Layden was in DeKalb Saturday for the Ohio game. Before that, 1990 was the last time SI came to NIU, and the curse was in full force.

The date was Oct. 6 and Fresno State was ranked No. 24 nationally coming into DeKalb. NIU was 2-3 at the time. Receiving a lot of press nationally, Fresno was the big favorite to win the game.

Perhaps the presence of SI at the game had something to do with the predictable folding out to be the unexpected. NIU won that game in 1990, 73-18, the most points ever scored against an Associated Press Top-25 team.

When the Ohio Bobcats rolled into the corn-infested DeKalb on Saturday, Layden was all too sure that an NIU victory was a given before kickoff.

“They should win,” said Layden, to his editor when he pitched the idea of a feature story on the Huskies. “We should be safe, let’s go out there in the middle of the week and we should be good.”

Layden first came to DeKalb the Wednesday prior to the game, to begin what is expected to be a four-page feature on the Huskies in this week’s issue. The final story still needed to get by his editors, but there wasn’t a backup story if it didn’t run, he said.

Researching the team and its coaches, Layden went back to his home in Connecticut Thursday evening. He arrived back in DeKalb with a photographer about four hours before kickoff Saturday ready to write on an NIU win.

Here was Ohio, a team with only one win, going against the newly-ranked Huskies with a raucous crowd backing them on their home turf. Ohio’s starting quarterback was injured on the sixth offensive play of the game, which made an NIU win seem inevitable.

Then, there was Layden on the sidelines of the north endzone, with 1:47 left in the game and NIU down by seven. A look of nervousness almost began to settle on his face. That was before quarterback Josh Haldi lofted a pass to wide receiver P.J. Fleck for a diving touchdown catch, about five feet from where Layden was standing.

Game sent into overtime. Game, set, match. NIU victory. Forget the SI curse.

If, indeed, NIU does make its way into the pages of SI this week, Layden said the story will take a look at how a program can achieve great things without money.

“Little guys can win,” said Layden, about the theme of the story. “It’s not a novel approach, but at the same time we just wrote a story two weeks ago on Oregon and how they are so successful because they have a hundred million dollar locker room, etc., etc., and that’s the kind of thing you need to attract recruits and win games in Division I-A. Obviously, that’s not. Look what we have with facilities here [at NIU].”

Layden called NIU’s facilities the worst he’s ever seen of the 50-plus Division I-A programs he’s visited.

With a potential spread on NIU in one of the most recognized magazines in the world with a circulation over three million, the NIU players are happy, but aren’t letting it get to their heads.

“They always say enjoy it while it lasts because it doesn’t last forever,” Fleck said. “We could lose Saturday, and we’ll never see them again.”