Allow me to let you in on a little secret: the Northeastern football team isn’t about to light the world on fire this fall (just Stonehill and Albany). There are, of course, reasons for this. Start with the team’s underdog mindset, something that helped them last year as much as the red swimsuit-clad Pamela Anderson helped my 13-year-old mind achieve unpure thoughts those many years ago (many, right). Picked tenth in the preseason Atlantic-10 coaches poll, it’s safe to say NU entered 2002 as underdogs. Despite that, the gridiron boys accomplished a standard setting year for Husky football. The school’s first Atlantic-10 championship, the school’s first berth into the NCAA Division 1-AA playoffs and an unprecedented 10 victories were among the things the Huntington crew were able to pull off. Fast forward to this season. Coach Don Brown’s gang was selected to be the Division 1-AA champion by Street ‘ Smith’s magazine and was also named the conference’s top team by league coaches. Coming with the respect, however, is a pressure all too unknown to Northeastern football. Take this exchange regarding that pressure between preseason All-Conference rusher Tim Gale and a reporter at media day on August 7. Gale: “We’re going to try and treat it the same as last year; like we’re not on top, like we’re underdogs. We’re going to work as hard and try to get things going like we did last year.” Reporter (after sizable pause): “How you gonna do that?” Gale: “I don’t know … right now the people that were here are going to come out with the same attitudes and try to get the new ones to the same level we’re at. Just play the way we’ve been playing.” The look he gave is what I imagine people look like when they see Mike Tyson in a dark alley. NU got the proverbial monkey off of its back last year with victories over UMass (first time in 19 years) and Harvard (first time, period) … so how hungry will they be now? How will they face being the marked men of the A-10? The point is, they can’t act like underdogs, because they aren’t. And then there are the all-important personnel changes. Ignoring for a second the mammoth losses at linebacker, the secondary is in desperate need of some shoe-filling this fall. At cornerback, Art Smith (who recorded two tackles with the Baltimore Ravens this preseason before being cut) put the fear of God into offenses around the league in ’02. No one wanted to throw at him, and in fact, opposing squads were more than happy to throw the way of now senior Charles Cameron, who enters the season as the team’s most experienced defensive back. Although free safety Anthony Nolen should have a strong year, losing safety Kurt Abrams won’t help the team’s already mediocre secondary. But those aren’t the toughest losses to swallow for this team … it’s the linebackers that hurt Brown’s bunch the most. Excluding monster middle man Liam Ezekiel, who recorded a conference-leading 145 tackles last year as a sophomore, the Huskies parted ways with three stud ‘backers. Neil Anderson, Adam Walter and Joe Gazzola’s absence this year will be hard to ignore. Ezekiel commented on the loss. “We lost a lot at linebacker,” he said. “So that’s going to be tough, but some young guys will just have to step up.” Seems to me like a lot to ask. Want more? Throw out the team’s possible overconfidence, toss away the loss of such key players as Smith, Walter, Anderson, Gazzola and Steve Anzalone. Last year’s team was predicated on the big play, and to be completely honest, they didn’t deserve to win all the games they did. The most obvious gift games from the 2002 palate of 10 wins are Harvard and Richmond. With NU clinging to a narrow three-point lead with less than a minute to play in the game, Harvard coach Tim Murphy boneheadedly chose a pitch from the seven-yard line. The Crimson, of course, fumbled the game away just seven yards from victory. Then, on Nov. 2, kicker Miro Kesic popped a 57-yard field goal with less than a minute remaining to give the Huskies yet another heart-stopping victory. Now, the question is, can they expect wins like those in 2003? If the 2002 New England Patriots are any sign, it doesn’t look like it. Even despite those obvious luck-filled victories, last year’s Huskies were built around the big play. Against Villanova, NU took a pass 90 yards to turn what would have been a tie game into a two-touchdown advantage. And against UMass, the Dogs held a slim four-point lead at halftime before tripping the goal-line with interception returns of 60 and 98 yards en route to a 42-17 victory. Let’s let the Huskies keep the ‘Nova and UMass victories, though. They did, in the end, earn them. Take away wins at Harvard and over Richmond, though, and NU’s magical 2002 record stands at 8-5. Goodbye A-10 championship. Adios NCAA playoff berth. And you can definitely forget about another record win total. But, don’t tell anyone. After all, this is just our little secret, right? Jack Weiland may be reached at [email protected]