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.