(Longest Preview Ever)
Injury Report (Dekalb Chronicle)
QB Dan Nicholson is questionable (day-to-day) for the game and he gets a vote of confidence from HC Joe Novak (or a low-blow @ backup QB Ryan Morris):
"No," he said. "I think Dan's our guy. I think we've got a pretty good dropoff between Dan and the next guy (former walkon Ryan Morris of West Chicago). I'm not being critical.
"If Dan can play, Dan's our guy. It's a total team thing. No, no thought (of replacing Nicholson) at all."
“[Nicholson] wasn’t 100 percent going in to the game,” Novak said. “If Morris is better at 100 percent than Dan at 70 percent, I’m gonna go with the guy that gives us a better chance to win.”
WR Greg Turner (R Shoulder Sprain) and backup RB David Bryant will both be back this week. WR Britt Davis is doubtful (R Hamstring Strain) and TE Reed Cunningham is questionable. It appeared on the game notes that RB Cas Prime is out for the season with a knee injury.
“I'm 99 percent sure Britt's not going to play this week,” Novak said. “It will be a miracle. He got it in the Central (Michigan) game running a deep cut and pulled it. Hopefully, one more week, but I doubt this week. I would be amazed.”
Subsequent changes to the depth chart:
WR Greg Turner starts this week with Marcus Lewis backing him up.
LE Brandon Bice is back from injury, with RS FR Jason Cruikshank backing him up.
DJ Pirkle has taken over the backup NG spot from Ed Jackson.
FR John Hopkins will be backing up Larry English
The LB situation is weird. The top 2 MLBs are Zach Larsen & Phil Brown. And the top 2 WLBs are Cory Hanson and John Tranchitella. Why are Tranch & Phil Brown backups? Beats me.
FS Spencer Williamson is FINALLY back from his whatever was keeping him out. Yay no more Jeff Fontana!
Back on returns are Marcus Perez & Evans Adonis for KO returns. Perez on punt returns.
Hey Joe, what is wrong with this team? (Weekly Press Conference)
"The obvious thing right now is that we are simply not making the plays to win. We are also missing some speed, especially on the offensive side of the ball, and that is hurting us. We are getting in the red zone, but we are not getting the ball in the end zone. Turnovers have killed us as well; we are minus-11. Penalties; We are holding too much. Those are things a good football team cannot do. Those are the things that are keeping us from being a good team right now. It is being addressed, we are working on it, we just need to do it on the field and we are not."
Wait...what speed are we missing on offense? I'm very confused. Is he just talking about Britt "Stone Hands" Davis?
Strong quotes by Joe N for the future of this team:
"We've got six games to play and 95 percent of this team is coming back. I owe it to these seniors; I owe it to the rest of the kids. If you are looking towards next year, next year starts Saturday. I told the captains, all of which are juniors, and the team. You know what we could start seeing next year, but if we are going to do that, next year starts right now. We need to get that winning taste in our mouths that we once had and it is not there right now. That will help us next year. Right now we are just focused on what we can still get out of this year. Is it going to be a great year? Obviously not. Is it going to be a winning season? It is going to be awful tough. But we can still come out of this thing with a more positive taste and feeling than we have right now."
Hey Chris Nendick, you gonna miss any more kicks this week?
“Everybody looks at the extra point as a chipshot, but there's a science to it and if you don't get that science down, you won't hit it,” Nendick said. “That was Jeff's first week holding. I thought he did a pretty good job.”
The two misses cost Northern Illinois a victory, and forced the studious Nendick to watch some extra gamefilm.
“I kicked well today, only missed once,” he said. “I'm feeling pretty good. The misses motivates me more. I was excited to get to practice today. I saw some stuff on film that I had to correct. I corrected it. I feel like I'm hitting the ball a lot better now.”
The WMU defensive coordinator is familiar with NIU's offensive scheme (NStar, Kalamazoo Gazette):
Saturday won’t be the first time NIU’s offensive coordinator Roy Wittke and WMU’s defensive coordinator Bill Miller have met. Both are familiar with each other as they were offensive and defensive coordinators, respectively, last year at Arizona State.
Looking back on the non-existence of the 2003 recruiting class as current seniors (Dekalb Chronicle, Kalamazoo Gazette):
Not helping matters is that the 2003 recruiting class didn't pan out, with several players leaving the program. An overlooked aspect in NIU's downfall is the revolving door of assistant coaches. Potential recruits like to build relationships with coaches. Is it a coincidence that ever since Scott Shafer and Matt Canada left following the 2003 season the program has taken a drop in recruiting? Not likely.
"I'm not sure this program is quite as hungry as it was then,'' the Huskies' 12th-year coach said. "I hope that's not the case.''
Novak's crew is 1-5 this season (0-2 in division play), off to its worst start since 1998, when Northern Illinois was wrapping up a 3-win, 30-loss stretch.
"We're going through a nonexistent senior class,'' Novak said. "We have nine seniors, three of whom see the field. We're lacking in maturity and leadership. It's a (class) of attrition and bad recruiting decisions, and we're struggling because of it a little bit.''
"The class started at 19 or 20, we had a couple academic (casualties), three or four others didn't want to work ... ''
The list goes on, according to Novak, including several players who can no longer play for medical reasons.
"I think going into this year we really felt we had a chance to be a very good football team next year,'' Novak said. ``We didn't think it'd be like this.''
Next season's senior class is 25 players deep. Novak hopes that group will make Northern Illinois' dip from the MAC's elite a one-year deal.
"He's still a work in progress,'' Novak said of Anderson, one of four NIU running backs averaging better than 5 yards per carry. "Our tailbacks should have a lot of yards. We give them the ball a lot.
"They're not Garrett Wolfe or Mike Turner.''
Entering this season, Northern Illinois was one of 18 Division I-A teams with at least seven winning seasons in a row, according to Novak. That's a streak he admits will "be awful tough'' to continue. In fact, if the Huskies don't win Saturday, it won't.
Prediction:Western Michigan should be a little out of this game emotionally, because of the way they lost last week to Akron on the last play of the game. The players in Kalamazoo may have said that they are over what happened, but I believe that is still going to be in the back of their minds. Here is a video of the above-mentioned play:
WMU has the 113th ranked run D in the nation. RB Justin Anderson will have a field day. We should be able to get some deep passes in against their secondary who is giving up 13.96 yds per pass which is good for 114th in the nation. If we win the turnover margin (biggest "if" ever), we win this game. Our defense is playing pretty good, and the amount of emotion for homecoming will be a tremendous boost. WMU will be emotionally drained form last week's loss and will not be able to match up. BTW, WMU is 113th in the nation giving up 38.7 ppg. If we can ever get our offense going, it will be against these guys.
Huskies with the upset, 30-28
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