Carifio: Once again, NIU refuses to exorcise its demons in loss to Miami

Having lost three straight games to Miami with a trophy on the line, NIU had the chance to exorcise a demon Tuesday in Oxford, Ohio.

The Huskies couldn’t slay the monster earlier this year against Ball State, losing for the fifth time in six games to a Cardinals team that just a few weeks later would fire its head coach.

They couldn’t do it on homecoming against Toledo, remaining winless in DeKalb against the Rockets since 2018 and losing for the fourth time in five meetings overall to their rivals.

And they didn’t do it Tuesday in a 20-9 loss to the RedHawks, the fourth straight for the Huskies since the inception of the Mallory Cup in 2018, named for legendary Miami and NIU coach Bill Mallory.

For a half Tuesday, it was looking like Miami (7-4 overall, 6-1 MAC) was going to cruise to a blowout win. The RedHawks went up 17-3 at the break as quarterback Brett Gabbert looked like Tom Brady, dropping dimes to Reggie Virgil like he was Randy Moss.

But the NIU defense found its way in the second half. Miami managed just 74 yards of second-half offense after 250 in the first half.

The NIU offense, quarterback Ethan Hampton and the offensive line, on the other hand, did not turn things around.

The Huskies entered Tuesday allowing 1.2 sacks per game, 24th best in the country. They’re gonna be dropping next week. Miami got to Hampton four times, including a strip-sack as NIU was driving down 17-9 in the final 6 minutes that effectively ended the game.

Hampton was 10 for 25 in the game for 70 yards and threw an interception. NIU finished with 128 yards on the ground, including negative-18 for Hampton. Even with the sacks factored out, he had four carries for 8 yards.

By comparison, backup quarterback Josh Holst was 6 for 8 for 31 yards and ran three times for 19 yards. But all but two of his snaps came on a desperation drive in the final 2 minutes with the Huskies down two scores.

It’s probably worth pointing out here the Huskies were without Antario Brown, but still got solid performances from Telly Johnson Jr. (15 carries, 50 yards, touchdown) and Gavin Williams (6-45).

Of course, the passing numbers and total points are par for the course this year, especially against teams with winning records, and for some reason, Ball State. Of the five teams in the MAC with one or two conference losses as of Tuesday, NIU has played four of them – Miami, Bowling Green (6-4, 5-1), Toledo (7-3, 4-2) and Buffalo (6-4, 4-2).

They are 1-3 in those games. They haven’t scored more than 20 in any of them. Toledo and Miami held them to less than 10 points. If they score 21 points in each of those games, they are 3-1 in them and 5-2 in the MAC, hanging around near the top of the standings and in pretty good shape to get to Detroit for the league title game.

In fact, you could argue if they scored 21 against Buffalo – a 23-20 overtime loss – they would have won in regulation. So a strong argument could be made that they’d be 6-1 and in first place in the MAC if they scored 21 points in those games.

But they didn’t reach 21 points in any of those games. They have a losing record in the MAC. They have one regular season game left, Nov. 30 at home against Central Michigan (4-7, 2-5), a team that has struggled this year but beat Western Michigan (5-6, 4-3) on Tuesday, taking some of the luster off of NIU’s second-best conference win of the year.

That’s all we’re talking about. 21 points per game, which in the modern college football landscape should be an afterthought.

Of all the demons NIU has failed to slay this year, letting this offensive jinx run amok is perhaps the most frustrating of all.