Two straight weeks. Two straight victories over teams that defeated the Huskies last year. A week after knocking off Kansas 30-23 to atone for a road loss in Lawrence, the Huskies gained a measure of redemption with a dominating 55-24 triumph over Central Michigan to open Mid-American Conference play.
The Huskies suffered an embarrassing 48-41 loss at Central Michigan in 2011. The Chippewas won just three games last year, but the Huskies bounced back to win their remaining nine games of the 2011 season. This year, the Huskies tuned up the offense early and kept on attacking in scoring the seventh most points during their time in the Mid-American Conference.
NIU third-year coach Dave Doeren said his team showed character in not letting up in the second half.
“It’s funny — we were up by ten at half, and everyone in the locker room was mad,” Doeren said. “We felt like we hadn’t played our best yet. We have a group of guys that doesn’t want to underachieve. They want to play at their utmost best, all the time. We left a few plays out there in the first half, and we knew it. Unfortunately, we started about as bad as we could there in the third quarter. We had a great kickoff coverage, they clipped us, then we gave up a 92-yard pass. We can’t do that; we can’t be a big play defense. And we won’t be. But very happy with the focus and how we react to negative plays. What happens after bad things. We scored with a long drive and forced a turnover. That’s the mental toughness of our team.”
The Huskies (4-1, 1-0 MAC West) are off to their best start since the 2003. The NIU offense was expected to take a set back this season after losing all-everything quarterback Chandler Harnish and the entire offensive line. Central Michigan can attest to the fact the NIU offense isn’t taking a backseat to any of the recent high-powered Huskie offenses.
Northern Illinois recorded a season-high 622 yards of offense on an astounding 88 plays. The Huskies had two runners with 100-plus yards, with Leighton Settle notched a career-high 152 yards and three touchdowns, including a 46-yard touchdown run. Quarterback Jordan Lynch added 144 yards for his third straight 100-yard rushing game.
Doeren said Settle is finally displayed the promise that he’s shown in practice.
“To see Leighton what we’ve seen in practice, finally in games; those cutback runs,” Doeren said. “He had a couple of them; earlier in the year he had one. Now he’s finishing those things.”
The NIU defense held in check a Central Michigan offense that mounted a late fourth-quarter bid to win at Iowa last weekend. The 31-point blowout victory helped ease the frustration of the season-opening one-point loss to Iowa considering that the Chippewas knocked off the Hawkeyes.
The Huskies, led by Sean Progar snaring his first career interception, held the Chippewas to 130 rushing yards on 31 carries.
“I think our defensive line played well,” Progar said. “I think they did a great job not dropping their quarterback as far as we saw in film. Their pass protection up front was a little different than we saw on film. Obviously, they did a good job on that. We got some hits, though. We would have liked to get a little more pressure on the quarterback. He was throwing quick passes, but, at the same time, we’ll watch the film tomorrow and learn from it and make the changes we have to.”