Coastal Carolina stuffs Northern Illinois, wins its first bowl game as an FBS program

Coastal Carolina has checked off another accomplishment on its quickly-growing FBS football resume.

The Chanticleers earned their first ever bowl victory with a 47-41 win over Northern Illinois on Friday night in the Tailgreeter Cure Bowl at Exploria Stadium.

But in typical Chants fashion, they had to make it entertaining.

Northern Illinois receiver Miles Joiner was tackled at the 4-yard line by Manny Stokes Jr. with 2 seconds remaining, and the Huskies were unable to get a snap off to allow the Chants to hold on for the win.

“We always make it interesting,” CCU coach Jamey Chadwell said.

After surrendering points on NIU’s first seven possessions, not including a one-play kneel-down to end the first half, CCU held the Huskies scoreless on their final three possessions.

They forced a turnover on downs, forced and recovered a fumble and stopped NIU at the 4 on the Huskies’ final possessions.

CCU scored the final two touchdowns of the game, the last to take the lead following the turnover on downs with 6:40 to play.

“We had a big fourth quarter. That’s crunch time, and we pride ourselves at Coastal on being a fourth-quarter team,” said super senior linebacker Silas Kelly, who had a game-high 14 tackles and forced the late fumble. “The fourth quarter, all the chips are on the line, that’s when you make your plays and that’s when the true character of your team comes out.”

Coastal finished 11-2 for its second straight 11-win season. Mid-American Conference champion NIU finished 9-5 a year after going winless. It was Coastal’s second bowl appearance in the school’s fifth year at the FBS level. The Chants lost in overtime to Liberty in last year’s Cure Bowl.

“First bowl win in school history. That’s a special monument for us to have and for us to have achieved,” said Kelly, who arrived at the postgame press conference with a cigar. “. . . You want to end it right. You want to have that last win under your belt and finally get to hold a trophy up. It’s an incredible feeling. I couldn’t imagine going out any other way. There’s no better end to my career here.”

Coastal was simply unable to slow down Northern Illinois’ rushing attack, which entered the game fifth in the nation at 234 yards per game, until it absolutely needed to.

The Huskies rushed for 335 yards and an average of 6 yards per rush.

But needing a yard for a first down midway through the fourth quarter while nursing a 41-39 lead, they were stopped on both third and fourth down at their 34.

The Huskies attempted a trick play on fourth down. Quarterback Rocky Lombardi acted like he was attempting to draw the Chants offside with a hard count and walked toward the sideline acting like he was disappointed. Meanwhile, the ball was snapped directly to Trayvon Rudolph, who was stopped short by lineman C.J. Brewer and linebackers Kelly and Teddy Gallagher.

Braydon Bennett took a forward pitch toward the right sideline from Grayson McCall for a touchdown on the next play to give CCU the lead. A two-point conversion catch by Isaiah Likely gave CCU its 47-41 lead. A Likely 40-yard TD reception from McCall off a reverse flea-flicker 2:27 earlier had pulled CCU within six points, and a fade pass to Likely on an attempted two-point conversion fell incomplete.

After Bennett’s final score gave CCU the lead, Kelly forced a fumble with a hard hit on Lombardi on a 13-yard run and it was recovered by Dre Pinckney, who was tackled by teammate Alex Spillum on his 8-yard return of the fumble to make sure he didn’t fumble and CCU retained possession.

The Chants punted after three plays, however, to force their defense to make the final stop, which ended a 15-play, 83-yard drive just 4 yards shy of the end zone.

“That last play for us to be able to tackle the guy inbounds with 2 seconds,” Chadwell said. “I knew, I was praying the referees knew, but I knew with 2 seconds they couldn’t get the snap off because that was the rule. So I’m like, ‘This is over,’ but I didn’t want to run out there prematurely. But they stepped up when they needed to.”

McCall, who admitted this week that he has contemplated a transfer from CCU for his redshirt junior season, was named the game’s MVP after completing 22 of 30 passes for 315 yards and a Cure Bowl-record four touchdowns. Bennett had 106 yards rushing and two touchdowns on just six carries, as well as 155 all-purpose yards and a receiving TD, and both Likely and Jaivon Heiligh had more than 90 yards receiving apiece.

McCall said after the game that he loves playing at Coastal and loves his teammates, and that he was “85 to 90 percent” sure he was going to return to CCU next season, though he still hasn’t made a final decision.

Nearly kicking it away

There were only two punts attempted through the first three quarters, and they were both big plays that nearly helped NIU pull out a win.

With CCU trailing 17-16 with 4 minutes left in the first half, the CCU defense forced a punt attempt but Aaron Bedgood was flagged for a personal foul for roughing punter Matt Ference at the NIU 33. That allowed the Huskies to retain possession with about 4 minutes remaining in the half and eventually score on a 12-yard Miles Joiner reception with 1:12 left in the half to extend its lead to 24-16.

Coastal scored on its first six possessions and was the first team that didn’t score on the 14th possession of the game. So the Chants kicked the game’s first punt late in the third quarter and NIU drove and threatened to take a double-digit lead. But the Chants forced a 45-yard John Richardson field goal that gave the Huskies an eight-point lead, and CCU did the rest of the scoring and held on late.

“This team has had a lot of firsts. We talked a lot this week about leaving their legacy,” said Chadwell, who became emotional speaking about his players’ accomplishments. “. . . To be a conference champion, to be a bowl champion, to be top 25 in the country, what a legacy and what a foundation. I’m proud of the way they competed and found a way. It’s a pretty special time.”

Records and milestones

Heiligh broke Jerome Simpson’s record for receiving yards in a single season with 1,127 after catching seven passes for 94 yards Friday. Simpson had 1,077 yards in 2006.

Heiligh has set program records for career receptions (191) and career receiving yards (2,825), and finished four catches shy of Bruce Mapp’s single-season receptions record of 71 set in 2014. He also owns single-game Cure Bowl records with 13 catches for 178 receiving yards, set last year.

Shermari Jones needed just 12 yards Friday to become the fifth CCU running back to eclipse 1,000 on the season and finished with 52 yards on eight carries to join De’Angelo Henderson (three times), Patrick Hall, C.J. Marable and Lorenzo Taliaferro in the 1,000 club.

Likely eclipsed 2,000 receiving yards in his career with seven catches for 96 yards and two touchdowns Friday, as well as a pair of one-handed catches. It’s the most career yards by a tight end in school history, and the fifth most by any Chant.

Gallagher became the fourth player in team history to record 300 career tackles, joining Kelly, who recorded more than 100 tackles on the season to become the first Chant to hit the century mark since Shane Johnson in 2017.

McCall’s four touchdown passes give him 54 in his career, passing Tyler Thigpen into second on CCU’s all-time list behind Alex Ross.

Up next

Coastal has a significantly more difficult non-conference portion of its schedule to start the 2022 season than it did this year, though for the second straight year, three of its four non-conference games are at Brooks Stadium in Conway.

The Chants begin with an Army team that is 8-4 this season, play FCS opponent Gardner-Webb in Week 2, host a Buffalo team that it defeated by just three points in September, and travel to ACC foe Virginia before starting Sun Belt Conference play. Virginia is 6-6 overall and went 4-4 in the ACC this year.

The Chants had a fairly weak non-conference schedule this season with Citadel, Massachusetts, Buffalo and Kansas, and built up a lot of its impressive season statistics both offensively and defensively against the overmatched foes.

This story was originally published December 17, 2021 at 10:24 PM.

Alan Blondin

The Sun News

Alan Blondin covers golf, Coastal Carolina University athletics, business, and numerous other sports-related topics that warrant coverage. Well-versed in all things Myrtle Beach, Horry County and the Grand Strand, the 1992 Northeastern University journalism school valedictorian has been a reporter at The Sun News since 1993 after working at papers in Texas and Massachusetts. He has earned eight top-10 Associated Press Sports Editors national writing awards and more than 20 top-three S.C. Press Association writing awards since 2007.