NIU football’s Dan Sheldon races down the sideline and is downed by the ultra-quick Jacob Winter. Who, you ask?

Sheldon, NIU’s wide receiver/punt returner and running back Michael Turner lined up to play football on June 14. This time the players were not dodging 250-pound linebackers, but feisty 7-year olds.

"Jacob became a big fan last year because of the football team’s success," said Jacob’s father, Jim. "So we arranged for them to come to his birthday party,"

Jacob watched the Huskies defeat Wake Forest in his first NIU football game from the bleachers of Huskie Stadium. However, the bleachers did not bring Jacob close enough to the players.

Wolf Shafer, the son of NIU football defensive coordinator Scott Shafer, played baseball with Jacob’s older brother Josh last summer. So, Jim asked Scott Shafer if he would ask Sheldon and Turner to come to Jacob’s birthday party.

Sheldon, Turner and the rest of the NIU football squad had been conditioning Monday through Thursday in June. Being asked to go to a 7-year-old’s birthday party caught Sheldon off-guard.

"It was an odd request," Sheldon said. "We didn’t really know what to expect when we got there."

Jim measured off his backyard in five-yard increments. Half of a football field, end zone and all, was substituted for the Winter’s backyard. Field goal posts made of PVC pipe topped off the makeshift field. All that was missing were 18 7-year olds and two Huskie football players.

The 228-pound senior running back and 5-foot-11 junior wideout coached and quarterbacked each of the teams.

Sheldon said the game was like playing sandlot football when he was a kid.

"We ran trick plays like double-reverse passes," Sheldon said. "It was a lot of fun."

The punishing game of two-hand-touch football had taken its toll on two of the Huskies’ top offensive threats. Nevertheless, enough fuel remained in the players tanks after the game to autograph mini-footballs and take a picture with all the kids.

Each player’s success last season left an impression on Jacob, but Sheldon edged Turner out in the voting for Jacob’s favorite player.

"I like Dan Sheldon because he is really fast and because he returns punts," Jacob said.

Jacob believes NIU will do well this year, and is looking forward to seeing another victory in NIU’s season opener.

At the end of the day, the kids chased the players’ car down the street, waving goodbye as Sheldon and Turner headed back down the road to reality.

"I just can’t think of a way to thank these guys enough," Jim Winter said.

Bruce Perry or not, the NIU football team is in for a world of trouble when Maryland brings its ground game to DeKalb on Thursday.

"Their D-line is outmatched and this offense is gonna pound them and pound them and pound them even more," former NIU football coach and current ESPN analyst Lee Corso said.

Granted, these are general lines plugged into EA Sports’ "NCAA Football 2004" memory, when 10 games between the Terps and Huskies were simulated (five without Perry as he’s unlikely to play because of an ankle injury).

Regardless of the different number of comments used before each game begins, this was the one Corso picked, and it’s not too far from reality.

NIU went 0-5 in five simulated games of "NCAA Football 2004" against a Bruce Perry-less Terrapin squad.

Maryland averaged 38 points and NIU countered with an average of three Steve Azar field goals.

The closest game was 41-27, in which Michael Turner ran 39 times for 220 yards. One play included a double-reverse pass by P.J. Fleck to Dan Sheldon.

The Burner will have to play the game of his life on Thursday if the Huskies want to beat Maryland. Forty carries and a few trick plays couldn’t hurt NIU’s offense if done with precision timing.

When Bruce Perry was in the Terps’ backfield, NIU went a surprising 2-3. A four-point margin, 35-31, was all that separated NIU from Maryland’s average score. Turner didn’t even run for 200 or more yards in any of the games.

Perry averaged 19 carries for 112.4 yards for the Terps during the five games, but never outrushed Turner.

Great, but there is a 99.9-percent chance Perry won’t even play Thursday. Terps’ sophomore Josh Allen will get the carries and his average of 112.2 yards over the five simulated games when Perry was absent exemplifies that Maryland isn’t all about its top running backs.

Maryland averaged 51 rushes over the 10 games, and used all three running backs in the process.

Vinson Reynolds, Travis Moore and Jason Frank will contain the outside at defensive end. It’s Maryland’s between-the-tackles game that will be the cause for major concern.

The Huskies are not deep at defensive tackle. The name of the game will be team football for NIU’s defense.

Huskie Stadium was at full capacity in the video game, as even the end zone seats were full. The end zone being jammed with fans isn’t realistic, but the rest of the stadium being packed is.

Bring the noise, Maryland. Video games aren’t real anyway.

In honor of the MAC’s preseason No. 1 NIU football team, here are a few odds on what will happen throughout the season.

Joe Novak gets a lap dance in Alabama after the Huskies top the host Tide -- a la Mike Price.

Star running back Michael Turner invited to New York’s Downtown Athletic Club for the Heisman Award. Five percent chance he’ll win the award.

The Huskies end the year as top 25 team. Double that (40 percent) that they make their way into the top 25 at some point throughout the season.

Both Maryland and Iowa State leave DeKalb with corn stalks rammed up their rears because they got it pounded to them so bad by NIU. The Huskies are the only MAC school to host two BCS schools this year and for them to get two W’s would prove monumental.

NIU goes undefeated, wins its bowl game and head coach Smokin’ Joe Novak shows where the nickname came from. He lights up a fat stoagie while body surfing through the hands of the Huskie faithful.

Turner petitions to the NCAA that former NIU offensive linemen Ryan Diem (Colts) and Tim Vincent (Bears) still have a remaining year of college eligibility left. Already expected to be a down year for the offensive line, it didn’t help when news got out that Mark Orszula will be out for the entire year, again (leg). And, of course, the tragic death of 6-foot-8, 283-pound OT Shea Fitzgerald in the Chicago Porch Collapse left a sore spot in everyone’s hearts.

Dan Sheldon leads the nation in punt returns again and shows why he has the nickname Seabiscut. Subsequently, the Burlington Central-native has a big screen movie made about him, just as his (nick)namesake.

NIU students take down the practice goal post following a Maryland win. After intense persistence from the higher-ups at NIU to not let any students on or near the field in ‘02 -- for fear the goal posts may come down on them -- the students revolt against the system and take the practice goal post to the East Lagoon circa 1999.

Fifth-year NIU receiver PJ Fleck and his roommate and Huskie starting quarterback Josh Haldi will get along. If Fleck wants to improve on his team-high 59 receptions in 2001, expect Haldi to -- courtesy of Fleck -- get a few breakfast-in-beds and to have his clothes ironed and picked out for him when he wakes.

The nickname Turner the Burner will grow on everyone, including The Burner himself, who doesn’t exactly take a special kinship with it now.

All-MAC cornerback Randee Drew pulls a RuPaul and goes both ways. The speedster originally from Wisconsin could add an extra boost to Haldi’s receiving core.

Everyone, and this especially includes the Chicago media, realize who has the best DI-A football team in Illinois. Who could it be? Certainly not the Wildcats or Illini.

In what is usually a time for tranquility throughout the world of college sports, the summer of ‘03 marked a hectic time with some good, some bad and some we’d all like to forget.

Here’s a taste of what you missed if you haven’t been keeping pace with the Huskies over the past couple months.

O lineman dies in collapse

Front page news throughout the the nation was the Chicago Porch Collapse, which killed 13 people. What you may or may not have known was that one of those victims was a student at NIU.

Shea Fitzgerald, a redshirt sophomore football player, was apparently sandwiched between the fallen porch floors that caved in to the basement at his brother’s apartment on Chicago’s North Side.

A 6-foot-8, 283-pound projected starter on the offensive line, Fitzgerald was there with two teammates, Pat Raleigh and Brad Cieslak.

"I didn’t see it happen," said Cieslak. "Me and Pat had just walked inside [from the porch], and we took about 10 steps inside and it sounded like a 300-foot tree had fallen. We saw the floor was collapsed down to the basement - it was gone in almost the blink of an eye."

NIU preseason No. 1

With 24 first-place votes, the Huskie football team topped the MAC News Media Associations list ahead of even the East’s Marshall and Miami-Ohio.

With 13 starters coming back from an 8-4 season and share of the MAC West crown, high hopes await this year’s squad.

Huskies to pro ranks

NIU football’s Tim Vincent was signed by the Chicago Bears and baseball’s Joe Mazzuca was picked up by the Florida Marlins.

On May 7, Vincent, a life-long Bears fan, signed a standard free-agent contract. The 6-foot-6, 290-pound offensive tackle is still listed on the Bears roster as cuts are being made every week.

A shortstop, Mazzuca was selected with the 353rd pick on the June 3 Major League Baseball Draft.

Mazzuca took his signing bonus into Jamestown, N.Y., where he’s with the single A Jamestown Jammers until Sept. 3.

Hammock to Wisconsin

Former NIU All-MAC running back Thomas Hammock will stay with football despite his playing career cut short because of a heart condition.

Hammock, a two-time 1,000 yard rusher, will be a graduate assistant for head coach Barry Alvarez and the University of Wisconsin this season.

Hammock was after his third consecutive year of being both an Academic All-American and All-MAC before feeling chest pains after NIU’s first game against Wake Forest in 2002. Hammock rushed for 176 yards in that one game.

Mr. Basketball to NIU

South Dakota’s top player, Paige Paulsen, signed with the NIU basketball team.

The 6-foot-7 power forward originally signed with Lamar. Then head coach Mike Dean left and Paulsen asked to be let out of his binding letter of intent.

That is where coach Rob Judson and the Huskies stepped in and offered a scholarship to Paulsen, who averaged 25.5 points, 11 rebounds and five assists his senior year, to which he was awarded with the Mr. Basketball award for South Dakota. As a junior, Paulsen led his team to a state title.

Tennis coach to Marquette

After coaching the NIU men’s tennis team for the past four years, Steven Rodecap took an offer to coach at Marquette.

A graduate of the MAC’s Ball State in 1996, Rodecap helped the Huskies to a 16-10 record and a runner-up finish at the MAC Tournament last year.

A replacement has not yet been named.

Bates hopes for CBA career

The NIU basketball team’s point guard from last year, Jay Bates, worked out for the Rockford Lightning CBA team over the summer.

Bates, who has used up all of his NCAA eligibility, is still a student at NIU working on his degree.

He has yet to hear from the Lightning, who will play four home games at NIU ‘s Convocation Center this year, about his prospects of making the team.

Baseball and softball end

NIU baseball coach Ed Mathey led the Huskies to a school-record 34 wins (34-24) in his first year with the team. The Huskies qualified for the MAC Tournament for the first time since 2000, where they upset top-seeded Kent State in the first round.

The NIU softball team finished with a 23-20-1 record. The Huskies lost to a lower seeded Bowling Green team in the opening round of the MAC Tournament, then fell again to Miami-Ohio.