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LEXINGTON, Ky. – Fans of the home team hoped that Kentucky would find room to run Saturday against a Northern Illinois team that ranked in the bottom half of the country in rush defense.
The Huskies’ fate wasn’t sealed in a 31-23 loss until Kentucky recovered an onside kick with 2:43 to play. And the NIU defenders were a big reason why.
The Huskies finished under their season average in total yards allowed (406 against an average of 432.7) and held Kentucky to 103 rushing yards. That number matched the Wildcats’ best effort of the season but was about 40 yards under NIU’s typical allowance.
“I think we have a good defensive line,” NIU coach Thomas Hammock said. “[The Wildcats are] big on the offensive line, but they have some things to work on in the run game just like we do. It’s tough sledding sometimes. ... I’m sure they’ll get it going. But that quarterback is special, and he can do a lot of things.”
Wildcats quarterback Will Levis, whom ESPN draft guru Mel Kiper recently dubbed “the real deal,” was sacked five times by a combined seven Huskies. He managed to find receivers under blitz pressure – he finished with 303 yards and four touchdown passes on 18-of-26 passing – but the frequency with which NIU was able to wreak havoc was eye-brow raising. Physically, the Huskies weren’t overwhelmed.
“[Levis] made two or three big plays off our all-out blitz,” Hammock said. “We’ve got to have guys closer to the line of scrimmage to affect him, and we didn’t. And we’ve got to tackle.
“But he’s a good quarterback. They got great wide receivers. Obviously, they got a big offensive line. But we felt like we gave ourselves a shot, and that’s all you can ask for.”
Speed proved to be the Achilles’ heel for the Huskies on Saturday. Two Kentucky receivers – Tayvion Robinson and Barion Brown – crossed the century mark on single-digit receptions, and each torched NIU for long touchdowns in the open field. Of the pair’s combined 249 yards, 183 of them came after the catch.
“We know that’s a good football team that’s tough and going to play hard,” Kentucky coach Mark Stoops said. “They’re going to compete for their conference championship. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy.”
NIU starting cornerback Jordan Gandy was ruled out for the game because of an injury suffered against Vanderbilt, and several other Huskies dealt with nagging pains. Devin Lafayette, a redshirt freshman who missed the previous week, didn’t want to make any excuses for the secondary.
“Everybody has to practice with the mindset like a starter,” Lafayette said. “That’s the good thing about our team, we have too much depth. Everybody’s just learning. We weren’t really worried about having newcomers out there.”
The parade of blitz packages put a lot of pressure on the defensive backfield to win one-on-one situations, and those more often went UK’s way. The impact of some of the Wildcats’ big plays, however, could have been reduced if the Huskies were on the same page at times; that’s where inexperience showed.
“We need to communicate more,” Lafayette said. “That’s what we feel like we lacked tonight.”
Hammock echoed that sentiment.
“You have to overly communicate at practice to communicate during a game,” Hammock said of a touchdown that gave the Wildcats a 21-14 lead in the third quarter, a lead they’d never give back. “We had a miscommunication, which caused a touchdown, but those are the things we have to harp on in practice. Those things can’t be acceptable.”