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The NIU football team wrapped up nonconference play with a win against future conference foe UMass.
The Huskies will look to pick up their first Mid-American Conference win when they head to Bowling Green on Saturday for a 2:30 p.m. kickoff on ESPN+. Each team has played a conference game, with the Huskies (3-2, 0-1) losing 23-20 to Buffalo in overtime and the Falcons (2-3, 1-0) beating Akron 27-20.
Here are three things to know about the game.
Antario Brown’s status
NIU’s policy under coach Thomas Hammock is not to comment on player availability or injury status, and Hammock on Tuesday said Brown’s availability will be made public an hour before kickoff Saturday as mandated by the league.
He did say Brown is doing everything in his power to make sure he’s able to play. He missed the second half last week against the Minutemen. The senior running back is averaging 121 all-purpose yards per game, 29th in the country.
But the Huskies’ ground game – ranked 10th nationally at 230.8 yards per game – didn’t miss a beat with Gavin Williams and Jaylen Poe handling the duties at running back. The team was down at halftime but ended up with the 34-20 win.
Williams ran 19 times for 125 yards and a score, while Poe ran 15 times for 98 yards and two touchdowns.
“I think every back in our program can be successful,” Hammock said. “We’re always going to have really good running backs. That’s going to be a standard as long as I’m here. But every back is a little different, they bring something different to the party. Last week I thought those guys ran extremely physical and were able to get their pads square, get downhill and attack defenders.”
Third-down domination
NIU has held opponents this season to a 23.3% success rate on third down – only Tennessee has done better nationally this year.
The Minutemen were 5 for 14 last week on third down and 1 for 6 in the second half.
Defensive end Jalonnie Williams, who has 1.5 tackles for a loss and a fumble recovery this year, said the success feels good given the work the team has put in this year.
“It’s something that we’ve emphasized since the spring,” Williams said. “We knew if we stop the run on first and second down we have very nice third-down packages, very nice blitzes and very good people that are in our third-down personnel [packages]. It’s very nice to get those people on the field and to impact the game.”
Turnover trouble
The Huskies have turned the ball over nine times this year, with four interceptions and five lost fumbles – and it could be worse, but they’ve recovered five of their own fumbles.
They’ve won the turnover battle only once this year, in the 16-14 win against No. 5 Notre Dame. They’ve lost the turnover battle in every other game this year. They were minus 4 against NC State, a game they lost 24-17.
“We are still fighting to play clean football,” Hammock said “When you look at that game and you watch it over and over, the details of performance, we have to be so much better at. And that’s been a point of emphasis with the coaching staff.”
And that message has been received, offensive lineman J.J. Lippe said.
“It’s been a huge emphasis,” Lippe said. “We’ve been turning the ball over way too much. That’s not the standard in our program. The ball is the program. Even when we go against our defense, they’re trying to rip the ball out. We have to stay on our p’s and q’s with that. So that’s very important to us right now.”