Orange Bowl 2013: Northern Illinois remains proud of successful season

The Northern Illinois Huskies were blown out by the Florida State Seminoles in the 2013 Orange Bowl on Tuesday night, but the team was not down about its 2012 season or its future going forward. The Huskies see the Orange Bowl not as their final destination, but as a stepping stone toward sustained success at a high level.

"Going to be a Boise (State) or TCU, hopefully," [wide receiver Martel] Moore, a senior, said of where he hopes the program will go. "The teams have been getting better ever since I got here. I think it's going to continue to get better, and everybody works hard to be a Boise or a TCU."

(via CSN Chicago)

Whether the Huskies can continue their forward momentum remains to be seen, but they'll return a large part of their core in 2013 and could make another run at a BCS bowl. Moore even offered after the game that Northern Illinois could jump to a better conference.

Going forward, Northern Illinois will be led by new head coach Rod Carey, who led the team on Wednesday night after Dave Doeren took the head coaching job at North Carolina State. If Carey leads the Huskies back to a BCS bowl, he undoubtedly hopes they will look more evenly matched than they did on Tuesday night.