Every fall semester NIU welcomes thousands of youthful freshmen to its campus.

While NIU football coach, Jerry Kill, did not have to greet that many new faces, it may have felt that way.

“We have a very youthful team,” Kill said. “We’re not loaded up with upperclassmen.”
In total, the Huskies return 46 upperclassmen, 15 seniors and 31 juniors, compared to 64 underclassmen, 23 sophomores and 41 freshmen.

The second-year coach said the youthful Huskies are lacking some of the fundamental knowledge needed to play at the college level. But, during the summer practices, Kill found his team to be more athletic than last year.

NIU, however, will not know where it stands in its football knowledge or athletic ability until its season opener against Wisconsin on Sept. 5. While many fans are focused on this game, Kill sees the trip to Madison, Wis. more as an opportunity to prepare his team for the MAC schedule.

“We have to get better and look at the big picture. We have to get our team ready for conference play and we’re about six weeks away from that,” Kill said. “We got to right things so we can peak at the right time.”

That right time will be on Oct. 3 when NIU hosts Western Michigan to start its conference schedule. The Broncos were picked to finish second in the MAC West this season, while NIU was predicted as the third place finisher. Central Michigan is expected to come out on top in the division.

In order to peak against these teams, NIU will rely on leadership from quarterback Chandler Harnish.

A red-shirt sophomore, Harnish returns to the Huskies after starting 10 games in 2008. The Bluffton, Ind. native completed 55.9 percent of his passes last year for 1,528 yards and eight touchdowns.

Harnish, however is looking for those numbers to improve. The quarterback said fans should expect more deep throws from the Huskies this season.

“We need to develop our passing game,” Harnish said. “We need to be able complete the deep ball and make the defense honor that; if we don’t - the defense can load the box.”

But Kill does not want the pressure to just be on his quarterback. The coach has been looking for playmakers at the specialty positions all summer; one position in particular has been tailback.

Kill said at the beginning of camp “whoever survived him would survive on the depth chart.”
That has left the Huskies with a trio of backs - Me’co Brown, Chad Spann and Justin Anderson.

Brown, who has put on 10 pounds this offseason, looks to provide NIU with momentum changing rushes.

“I put on like 10 pounds, but I’m the same speed and even quicker,” Brown said. “Expect more big plays.”

But the bread and butter of NIU football last season was its defense. The Huskies had the No. 1 defense in the MAC and the No. 17 defense in the nation.

In order to repeat this feat, NIU will have to find players to fill the gap for seven defensive starters. The group being hit the hardest is the defensive line, in which three players graduated; This includes the No. 16 selection in the NFL Draft, Larry English.

But defensive end Brandon Bice isn’t worried about the defense.

“We feel great,” Bice said. “A lot of young guys stepped up. We needed that to develop some depth.”

The senior believes NIU can repeat as the top defense in the MAC if it prevents mental errors, plays every down as if it’s their last and follows their rules.

As for what those rules are, Bice said it depends on NIU’s opponent. Huskies fans will just have to wait for the team to take the field to see if Bice and his team’s rules can create another stringent defense.

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