MINNEAPOLIS | In 2007, both Chandler Harnish and Nathan Palmer sat out the football season as redshirts, unable to help NIU during a 2-10 season.

Things changed Saturday in the 2008 season opener.

Facing a Big Ten team at Minnesota’s Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis, Harnish and Palmer didn’t look like redshirt freshman.

Unfortunately for the Huskies, it wasn’t enough as NIU fell short in a 31-27 loss to the Gophers.

Leading Minnesota 27-24 with 5:15 left in the fourth quarter, the Gophers took the lead on a 74-yard drive which ended in a Duane Bennett 1-yard touchdown run, leaving Harnish and the Huskies 22 seconds for a miracle.

Faced with a fourth-and-1 at the NIU 3-yard line, Minnesota head coach Tim Brewster was faced with a tough decision: kick the almost sure field goal for a tie game or roll the dice and play for the win. Unfortunately for first-year head coach Jerry Kill and the Huskies, Brewster chose the gutsy call and Bennett carried the ball to the NIU one for a first-and-goal leading to the winning score.

After the ensuing kick off went out of bounds, giving NIU (0-1, 0-0) the ball at their own 40, Harnish was able to complete two passes to Ricky Crider, giving NIU the ball at the Gopher 30. The redshirt-freshman from Bluffton, Ind., had two chances on a Hail Mary, but both passes fell short, sealing the win for the Gophers, who equaled their win total from 2007.

Making his first start in place of an injured Dan Nicholson, Harnish completed 17 of 29 passes for 326 yards and two touchdowns in the loss, the fifth straight season-opening loss for NIU.

“It really stinks to lose, but you haven’t seen the end of the Huskies,” Harnish said. “There’s a lot of good things to come.”

Both of Harnish’s touchdown passes went to Palmer, who finished the day with three catches for 170 yards.

“I was able to outrun some people,” Palmer said. “It’s not every day that you get to go out there and play your first game in a stadium like this.”

Minnesota (1-0, 0-0) started the 2008 season with a 90-yard touchdown drive which ended with an Eric Decker 8-yard touchdown reception. The catch was Decker’s sixth of the drive.

Minnesota’s top wideout was also in the game as a defensive back on the last drive, and batted down the final pass of the game.

The Huskies answered with a Justin Anderson 2-yard touchdown run with 10:45 left in the first half. The run was one of the only bright spots of the day for Anderson, who gained just 38-yards on 13 carries for a 2.6 average.

“We got to run the ball better, I can tell you that,” said Kill, who made his debut as head coach. “Also, there’s a lot of positive things to come out of it. We turned the ball over just once. We didn’t have a lot of penalties, we did a good job of kicking field goals, we did block a punt.”

NIU answered with a field goal to tie the score at 10, but the wheels fell off of the Huskie defense at the beginning of the second half, as a Jack Simmons 53-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Adam Weber gave Minnesota a 17-10 lead.

After another Salerno field goal, the Minnesota offense came up with another big play, this time a 61-yard touchdown run by Bennett.

Down 24-13 with their backs against the wall at their own 9-yard line, the Huskies faced a third-and-10. After Harnish was forced to take a timeout; right in front of Minnesota’s student section, the quarterback dropped back and completed a 91-yard touchdown pass to Palmer.

Palmer’s second touchdown reception, a 52-yarder, gave NIU a 27-24 lead. However, the lead didn’t last as the Huskie defense couldn’t stop the Gopher offense one last time.

“I appreciate their efforts tremendously,” Kill said. “We just came up a play or two short, and we’ll learn a lot from it.”


Article updated 11:41 a.m., 9/2/08

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