Belated Spring Game Thoughts

Hello everybody. It's been a while (4 posts in April!), but your favorite NIU blogger is back with a vengeance. I just want it to be football season again!

Since the last time I've posted, the baseball team has continued to have success and spring practice culminated with a spring game for the football team to showcase their talents.

Since then, we've obtained a new AD (more on him later) for NIU and a new writer for this site. I'd like to welcome Nick aka 7 aka G-Force to write for this site. He adds a little more flavor and will pick up my slack when school and other commitments get in the way.

You have to feel kinda bad for the football team this year throughout the spring practicing outside. The weather has been a complete turn of a roulette wheel with most of the days ending up either very cold or rainy. By the time the spring game was about to start, it was windier than it ever was in Dekalb all year. I definitely knew that the main focus of the game will be to figure out some of our running game.

It wasn't much of a game or scrimmage. Score wasn't kept, but there were people that did score. I guess that's the best they could have done with such a depleated roster because of injuries. It was just one offense against one defense with a lot of people switching in. It wasn't terribly exciting, but then again what spring games are that interesting?

QB Controversy

The star of the spring game was clearly redshirt freshman QB DeMarcus Grady, who rushed for 118 yds on 8 carries. He also threw 4 for 7 with 36 yds and a TD. This is foreshadowing for what Grady is going to be used for during the season. Either Dan Nicholson or Chandler Harnish is going to start the regular season. More than likely if Dan N is healthy the job is going to be his. Harnish does have entire spring under his wings running the offense more efficiently than anybody, so he currently has the upper hand.

Let's just face it. Kill is going to be running the spread offense and Ryan Morris is just not suited for the job. I would say from what I've seen is that Harnish is more suited to run the spread than Nicholson, who is not as mobile as the Indiana native. Morris may have the most experience because he's been here the longest, but he sure isn't as talented. Grady is a little slow to adjust to the college game because he mostly just ran the ball in high school.

If freshman QB Brandon Rogers is going to make an impact...well I'm pretty sure he's gonna redshirt this year for the success of the future of our program. If not that, then he is a mid-season emergency QB which we don't want to see happen.

Harnish moved around really well, except one of his passes was right to the defense. DeMarcus of course moved around great as well.

Both the Daily Chronicle and the Northern Star have all their money on Dan Nicholson being the starter and I'll have to go on ahead and agree with what they're trying to say. He'll get his chance with all these freshmen biting at his heels come summer/fall.

Does anybody understand this quote?:

The most interesting thought is what to do with Grady. The coaches made it abundantly clear that they won't be switching his position and they won't be rotating quarterbacks.

“Will I package some people? You bet,” head coach Jerry Kill said. “Maybe we'll see two quarterbacks in a game. We'll see how everything progresses.”

OK. So you're not going to rotate the QB's, but we might see 2 QB's in the same game???



I actually have a better version of this run and others, but I was a little too lazy and video-illiterate to post it...

The Rest

Running backs Justin Anderson, David Bryant and Chad Spann all looked like they were in mid-season form. I'm excited about what they have to offer along with Montell Clanton coming back. Alan Smith and Rickey Crider are darkhorses.

Our offense looked horrible. Of course this was going to be expected somewhat with the experience of our defense and the fact that throwing against this severe 35 mph was insane. Walk-on TE Jack Marks had a decent outing pulling in a TD from Grady and another catch for 35 yds total. K Mike Salerno looked good cleaning up for Chris Nendick in the kicking game. He did kick with the wind from 40 yds twice, but it was impressive nonetheless.

WR Chase Mejia looked bad throughout the beginning of the spring game. He dropped passes and wasn't running the right routes. I'm happy he was able to turn around and make some good plays towards the end of the spring game. Not bad for a true freshman! LB Tim McCarthy was back from injury and playing like it was nothing. Can't wait for him to be back on the field.

As for what kind of plays we were running, it was nothing but 4-wide, trips to one side spread out stuff. There was no 2-back power offensive game of any sort throughout the spring game. I found this interesting, because I felt disappointed not getting to see most of the offense be set into motion. The defense looked very fast and ready to take people down.

On the NFL Draft front, TE Brandon Davis got an invite to the Redskins camp, while K Chris Nendick didn't get a call from any NFL team.

First week of spring practice in the books

Injury Updates:

RB Justin Anderson - Non-contact throughout the spring (Torn PCL from last year)
RB Montell Clanton - Out for at least a month (Torn R ACL last year)
LB Tim McCarthy - Close to 100% (Torn MCL & PCL last year)

List of players limited to running from Friday night's practice:

QB Dan Nicholson (shoulder surgery)
RB Montell Clanton (ACL)
RB Ricky Crider (broken leg)
FB Anthony Antonacci (ACL)
WR Britt Davis (shoulder surgery)
WR Matt Simon (shoulder surgery)
TE Dave Koronkiewicz (dislocated elbow still?)
DT Craig Rusch (ACL)
DE Jake Coffman (foot injury)
DL John Hopkins (compartment syndrome still?)
DL DJ Pirkle
LB Jason Cruikshank
LB Tim McCarthy (MCL & PCL)
DB Chase Carter (dislocated shoulder)

Practice Highlights:

Wide receiver Marcus Perez had the catch of the day on Wednesday at Northern Illinois spring practice with a one-handed grab on a 40-yard pass from quarterback Chandler Harnish with a defensive back draped on Perez.

Perez must be getting a ton of playing time with both starting WRs Matt Simon and Britt Davis sitting out. Even though Marcus didn't shine in Novak's system, hopefully he has come far enough in his career to have a breakout season with all the reps he's getting this spring.

Hungry? Get an interception

Now here's some motivation:

Linebackers coach Tom Matukewicz is already by far my favorite assistant coach because of this article in the Daily Chronicle from Thursday.

"Tuke" says that any player that causes a turnover "Gets Candy"

Any fumble or interception, Tuke is gonna hook you up with a nice (hopefully right out of the freezer) Snickers bar. The toughest defensive player is going to get a huge crunch bar at the end of spring ball.

More Tuke goodness:

It's not the only phrase Matukewicz sticks with. A technique drill at Monday's practice that involved defenders moving and picking up a towel had Matukewicz repeating “Shake and bake” to his players.

“He just comes up with stuff off the top of the head,” Schiller said. “Him and (wide receivers) coach (P.J.) Fleck are probably the craziest guys out there.”

“A lot of humor, I can say that,” said linebacker Phil Brown. “They're making it fun around here. It's serious, but (Matukewicz) helps us understand that it's really a game.”

“As a defense, we've got to get that mentality that each play ends with a takeaway,” Matukewicz said. “Not a tackle, not an incomplete pass. It ends with an interception. It ends with a strip attempt. It ends with a fumble recovery. That's the mentality we've got to have.”

That's what we have lacked since before I even went to school here in '05: TURNOVERS


Could the 6'6" 244 basketball player Bristan Kelley play TE for the Huskies?

Kansas State, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin and Miami (FL) were all interested in Bristan while he was playing football at Lee Summit North in Missouri.

I think this is a GREAT idea. We're lacking in TEs this year and I think Kelley would be a great addition to this team. He gets 2 weeks to try out. If it works out, fine. If it doesn't then no harm, no foul. He's gonna be fighting to get any minutes at all next year in the fast-paced, guard-oriented offense that Kelley is just not built for, so perhaps he can make the complete transition and be a star.

Ah, Spring is in the air

Spring practice started Monday for the Huskies and things are a little different this year. Practices are M-W-F @ 7:50 AM. That's 15 practices until the Spring Game on April 26th. Why only 3 practices a week?

“We have to do a good job of evaluating every practice," Kill said. "We're practicing Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so that gives us a day in between to spend a lot of time on the film evaluating our players.”

During the Novak era they were getting up early to lift and also going to afternoon practices several times per week. Another good thing this year is that the practices are open to the public, which was not the case starting the last couple years or so.

A Daily Chronicle article Saturday proclaimed that 4 reasons why NIU will succeed include:

1. Dan Nicholson
2. The defense
3. Matt Simon
4. Justin Anderson

Um...what?

Dan Nicholson as the #1 reason why we will succeed? The QB who's career stats are 458 passes for 20 TDs and 22 INTs? The QB who won't throw until May because of off-season shoulder surgery? The player that had 2 concussions knock him out of games last year? Not a way to start a list for success in the 2008 season. Danny N isn't the end-all be-all for this team. Especially not if one of the redshirt freshmen Chandler Harnish or DeMarcus Grady can step up to the plate.

Here's a blurb about Matt Simon:

The senior wide receiver will once again be looked at as the main target for Nicholson. Coupled with a healthy Britt Davis - who also had surgery on his shoulder like Simon and Nicholson - and an emerging 6-foot-3 Landon Cox, who reminds me a little bit like Sam Hurd, Simon will have a good core of wide receivers built around him.

An emerging Landon Cox? The WR who had 2 catches LY for 19 yds, which places him 12th on the team in yards? I don't think so. And the comparison to Sam Hurd is a little ridiculous. The only comparison I see is that Cox is 6'3 and Hurd is 6'2".

Also, Nick's season predictions are ridiculous as well, having us winning our first 4 road games and then losing 3 home games.


More random spring notes:

Jerry Kill has a request:

"It's been different for us being indoors (for winter conditioning)," Kill said of his staff, most of which followed him from Carbondale. "We never went indoors, but they had nine inches of rain and flood warnings down there not too long ago, so their weather has been miserable, too.

"It's why we need that indoor (practice) facility)."

The 13 players from last year that had major surgeries will not be cleared to practice until June 1st, setting the team back a bit.

The base defense will still be a 4-3.

Illinois transfer QB/ATH Paul Blalock is getting some looks at fullback.

QB Chandler Harnish speaks out about the offense:

“Offensively speaking we're going to be in shotgun a lot more compared to last year when we were rarely in shotgun,” Chandler Harnish said. “QB's will be a lot more involved in our offense, which I'm real excited about. It'll be a lot more explosive on offense.”

"There's a lot of running, lot of sprint-out type passes," said Harnish

"Some of those QB runs we have designed, really helps spreading out the defense."

QB DeMarcus Grady:

“We're running a little zone read and trying to open up the offense a little more,” Grady said. “We're trying to have the quarterbacks be a threat and try and give the offense a new dimension.”

How Kill makes every day a competition:

"Everything we do in the offseason is competition. Winners or losers," he said. "You don't miss class. If you do, you lose points. There's competition in the classroom, too. If you get A's and B's, you get a certain amount of points. If you get C's and D's, you don't get as many. We make everything we do competition."

And those who aren't accountable, can find themselves attired like one offensive lineman Monday, in the yellow 'I let my team down,' jersey.

"If you don't do the right things, you pay the piper," said Kill. "Then I don't have to scream and yell at 'em. Just put 'em in the yellow shirt and I save my voice and I'll be able to coach longer.

"That (jersey) is something they don't want to be in."

I sure wouldn't want to be wearing that yellow jersey! Good idea coach.