NORMAL — Illinois State quarterback Matt Brown struggled to his feet only to crumple to the Hancock Stadium turf when applying pressure on his right leg.

What was back up quarterback Matt Lancaster thinking?

“Get up!” Lancaster said. “But then I had to get ready and warm up.”

Matters got extremely warm for Lancaster and the Redbirds when Northern Iowa scored a go-ahead touchdown with 43 seconds remaining Saturday.

The true freshman responded by guiding ISU 59 yards in 38 seconds and hitting senior Eyad Salem with a heart-stopping 8-yard touchdown pass with under a second left to give the Redbirds a 22-20 victory.

ISU finished at 6-5, its first winning season since 2006.

“I knew I was throwing to him the whole time. He’s definitely the playmaker on this team,” Lancaster said of Salem. “What a way to end his career having a touchdown pass and a winning season. He made it happen getting through those two people like he did.”

Salem caught nine passes for 74 yards to finish the season with a school-record 92 receptions. He broke the record of 86 set in 2005 by current St. Louis Ram Laurent Robinson, who was in attendance.

The seasoned Salem tried to pump up Lancaster’s confidence after it became obvious a sprained knee would not allow Brown to return.

“I explained to him ‘take it easy. Trust your reads and trust your playmakers,’ ” Salem said. “Don’t do anything crazy.”

“It helped me out a lot,” said Lancaster, who completed 14 of 19 for 95 yards and rushed for a team-high 59 yards. “E and the rest of the seniors are a great group to be around.”

Spack intentionally cashed in a possible redshirt year by using Lancaster after an opening-game injury to Drew Kiel. The thought was Brown would need relief at some point and Lancaster would need playing experience under his belt.

“He did a great job. This offense is difficult to run,” Spack said. “Some people wonder why I played Matt (Lancaster) against Illinois early in the year. We had to in case something like this happened. We had to make sure he was under fire a little bit.”

Salem admitted the dramatic end to the season and his college career choked him up momentarily.

“This is the most overbearing feeling I’ve had in my life,” he said. “I’m as emotional as my left shoe. But as soon as I got back in the locker room, I got emotional.”