Herd to face Huskies in Boca Raton

Published 11:58 pm Sunday, December 7, 2014

BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) — Marshall and Northern Illinois will meet in the Boca Raton Bowl on Dec. 23 in a matchup of conference champions.

Marshall (12-1) won Conference USA. Northern Illinois (11-2) won the Mid-American Conference. The game will be played at Florida Atlantic University.

It’ll be the last game of Marshall quarterback Rakeem Cato’s record-setting career. Cato, a native of Miami, has thrown a touchdown pass in each of his last 45 games, the record for Football Bowl Subdivision quarterbacks.

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Northern Illinois and Oregon are the nation’s only teams with at least 11 wins in each of the last five seasons. The Huskies are 4-3 all-time against Marshall, winning the last meeting in 2001.

Marshall is looking for bowl wins in consecutive seasons for the first time since 2001 and 2002. Northern Illinois is bowl-bound for the seventh straight year.