Disrespect at the Orange Bowl?
There’s undeniably a hierarchy in college football. And at the Orange Bowl, it seems like there might have been a little bit of bullying going on.
According to CBS Sports’ Bruce Feldman, sources told him an Orange Bowl representative told a Northern Illinois University staff member his team wasn’t welcome at the game against Florida State. The NIU Huskies’ presence in the Orange Bowl has come under criticism since it was announced in December. ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit called it “a joke” that the 12-1 Huskies were invited to play in the Orange Bowl, to which an NIU player responded by throwing an orange at the TV.
“You guys [NIU] don’t even deserve to be here,” the Orange Bowl rep said to the NIU staffer, according to Feldman. “We didn’t even want you here.”
According to Feldman’s source, the exchange took place in a hospitality suite. “The Orange Bowl rep had compared NIU to Duke. The NIU rep responded by pointing out that the Huskies, who are riding a 12-game winning streak, have been to bowl games in five consecutive seasons. The conversation escalated from there,” Feldman reported.
In the end, the Huskies really couldn’t keep up and and Florida State ran away with the game in a 31-10 lead, which certainly won’t help change the minds of any critics.
