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Northern Illinois headed into the Potato Bowl hoping to end its season on a high note against Fresno State. Unfortunately, it suffered a bit of a setback during the contest when the football team’s Twitter account was seemingly hacked as part of a crypto scam.
The NIU Huskies got off to a 2-0 start this season by following up a win over Western Illinois with the stunning performance that saw them add another trophy to its “Boneyard” of big names after upsetting #5 Notre Dame for the biggest win in the history of a program that played its inaugural season on 1968.
The team made a brief appearance in the Top 25 before a loss to NC State brought the good times to an end, and they ultimately finished the season sitting at 7-5.
That may have been a somewhat disappointing result based on the optimism their victory over the Fighting Irish was able to inspire. However, NIU still earned the right to compete in the postseason for the second year in a row (and the third in four campaigns) and was ultimately invited to face off against Fresno State in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl.
The first half did not pan out how NIU was hoping, as Fresno State headed into the locker room with a 13-3 lead after limiting the Huskies to 85 passing yards and another 63 on the ground (they only averaged 2.5 yards per carry).
It would also appear the team’s Twitter account was the latest one to fall victim to hackers attempting to promote a crypto scam, as a post calling attention to the launch of a $NIU coin on the Solana platform appeared shortly after kickoff prior to a couple of similar followups.
It does seem like there’s a very, very slim chance NIU is turning to crypto to raise funds for the football team, but the fact that the coin in question isn’t being advertised on any of its other social media channels nor promoted on the school’s website would strongly suggest this is not a legitimate venture.
The account also hasn’t set out any non-crypto tweets since the initial one was sent out (it posted periodic updates during games in the regular season), so all signs point to it being commandeered by some unsavory actors.