For roughly three hours Monday afternoon, the dizzying college football carousel will slow long enough for Northern Illinois (7-5) and Fresno State (6-6) to battle for the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl in Boise, Idaho.
Neither school will have its starting quarterback (and other quality players) due to the transfer portal. Neither school is expected to belong to its current conference by July 2026 as Fresno State already has committed to the Pac-12 while NIU is rumored to be weighing a move to the Mountain West.
And, in Fresno State’s case, the program’s official head coach isn’t the guy who’s steering the ship in Boise. Interim boss Tim Skipper, who took over in July when Jeff Tedford had to step down for health reasons, hands over the reins after the bowl game to Southern California associate head coach Matt Entz, who was hired Dec. 4 to take over the program.
Nonetheless, Monday’s game allows for a bit of college tradition to shine through. Specifically, a bunch of seniors getting to end their careers on a bowl trip with their teammates. The Huskies, for example, have a school-record 30 seniors playing on Boise’s unique blue turf for their final game.
“You have to adjust and adapt to the new landscape of college football and do the best you can,” Northern Illinois head coach Thomas Hammock told Field Level Media. “But I’m glad we didn’t have to cancel a game like Marshall — that we can go out there and experience this game with our seniors and let them go out there and have one last hurrah.”
The Huskies, of course, already have secured one lifetime memory this season: their 16-14 victory on Sept. 7 at fifth-ranked Notre Dame. But Ethan Hampton, the quarterback who guided that upset with 198 passing yards and one touchdown, no longer runs the show for NIU. He entered the transfer portal and committed to Wake Forest — only to decommit Monday when head coach Dave Clawson retired. He’s now headed to Illinois.
In Hampton’s stead, redshirt freshman Josh Holst will get his second start. In his first start, Holst completed 22 of 46 passes for 210 yards and rushed 14 times for 48 yards in a 13-6 loss vs. MAC rival Toledo.
“He’s really made a tremendous jump over the last three weeks from a preparation standout to a mentality standpoint and with his approach,” Hammock said. “I’m excited to watch him go out and play. You can do a little bit more (with Holst) because he does have the ability to hurt you with his legs.”
Fresno State quarterback Mikey Keene led the Mountain West with 2,892 passing yards as he clicked on 70.5 percent of his passes. Alas, Keene is one of 14 Bulldogs who hit the transfer portal and won’t play Monday.
Through it all, Fresno State will embrace its spot in a bowl game.
“We’ve been through a lot of adversity, but we just kept on swinging,” Skipper said, according to the Fresno State student-run newspaper The Collegian, after the Bulldogs became bowl eligible.
Fresno State has chosen to keep Northern Illinois guessing by listing sophomore Joshua Wood and freshman Jayden Mandal as co-starters on the depth chart. Wood seems more likely because, while he attempted just five passes, he rushed 26 times for 86 yards and five scores as the Bulldogs’ change-of-pace quarterback in the Wildcat formation.
“It’s a challenge, right?” Hammock said. “It’s almost like a first-game-of-the-year mentality. You have an idea of what they want to do schematically — and then you’ll figure out the personnel once you get out there.”
–Field Level Media