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Eastern Illinois will have two former players playing in a post-season collegiate football game this weekend as AJ Hantak and Bradley Dewberry will both participate in the 3rd annual Spiral Tropical Bowl on Sunday, January 14, in Daytona Beach, Florida.
 
This will be Hantak's second post-season contest as he played in the FCS National Bowl back in December.  Hantak played in 50 games during his EIU career as the Panthers long snapper.  The 50 games rank as the fourth most played by an EIU player in school history.  The senior was part of the Panthers OVC Championship team as a true freshman in 2013 until he was injured during the fourth game of the season at Northern Illinois.  He would return to serve as the long snapper for the next four seasons, EIU posting winning seasons in each of his final three years with an FCS playoff appearance in 2015.  Hantak was named an honorable mention All-American long snapper by Special Teams U and in a recent article by FloFootball.com.
 
Dewberry wrapped up his EIU career earning second team All-Ohio Valley Conference honors as a safety.  He finished the season third on the team with 68 tackles while tying for the team lead with three interceptions.  He had a season high of 12 tackles against Jacksonville State with nine tackles against UT Martin.  He was named the OVC Defensive Player of the Week following EIU's win over Eastern Kentucky where he had two interceptions including one in overtime that sealed the victory.  Dewberry's third interception of the season was against Southeast Missouri that ended a Redhawks drive and gave EIU the win.
 
The third-annual SPIRAL Tropical Bowl, will be played at Daytona Beach Municipal Stadium on Sunday Jan. 14, 2018 at 9 a.m. Since 2016 over 110 players from this game have gone on to the NFL including more to the CFL and Pro Arena leagues. The Tropical Bowl is considered a top four bowl game by scouts and is attended by almost every NFL team consistently seeing 27 teams scouts and GMs in attendance.
 
Tropical Bowl Website - http://www.tropicalbowl.com/home