In his seven years at Southern Illinois, head coach Jerry Kill beat Western Illinois six times.
NIU hopes Kill can bring that same luck to DeKalb because the Huskies have lost to the Leathernecks in their past three meetings.

NIU (0-1) will host its home opener this Saturday at 6:30 p.m. at Huskie Stadium. The game will be televised on Comcast SportsNet Chicago. It will also be broadcast by WSCR AM 670 and WLKB AM 1360.

“I don’t know if it’s advantage,” Kill said of his past experience. “Being that I was in I-AA football I know what type of football they play in I-AA football. You got to be ready to play every week.”

Kill said the whole team had to get better this week, but the offense in particular would face a challenge against WIU (1-0). That’s because the Leathernecks plays a unique system.

Sometimes WIU will have three down linemen with four or five linebackers standing up. The Leathernecks also like to move their defensive players around before the snap.

“At Southern, we struggled with them,” Kill said. “Most people do.”

NIU center Eddie Adamski echoed Kill’s concern. The senior, who has started 38 games at NIU, said this is the most unique defense he’s ever seen.

“It’s actually nothing I’ve seen before,” Adamski said.

But the offense isn’t the only thing that needs to improve from last week’s loss against Wisconsin. The NIU defense will look to make strides and protect the home field, as it prepares for MAC play.

Huskie strong safety Tracy Wilson said the defense has two main focuses this week.

“We got to stop the big plays,” Wilson said. “And, we got to get off the field to give our offense a chance.”

Getting the defense off the field will be key for NIU’s success.

Last week, against the Badgers, the Huskies scored 14 points in the fourth quarter, while the Badgers were kept off the board. NIU’s defense was on the field for only 4:05 in the final period.

But, in the third quarter, the defense was on the grass for 12:11. During that time, NIU gave up 14 points without scoring any of its own.

This week will present the Huskies with another opportunity to fix these mistakes, as their young defense gains experience.

“You try to look at what we need to do to execute better on both sides of the ball and in the kicking game,” Kill said. “We have a younger team than we had a year ago.”

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