DeKALB – After an offseason of movements and preparation, college football returns to DeKalb this weekend as NIU plays host to an in-state foe to kick off the 2024 campaign.
NIU and Western Illinois University will battle Saturday at Huskie Stadium for the teams’ first meeting since NIU head football coach Thomas Hammock took the reins in 2019.
The Huskies and Leathernecks last met in 2016, with Western Illinois coming away with a 28-23 win in DeKalb. While NIU has won two Mid-American Conference titles and a bowl game in the years since, WIU has trended in the opposite direction.
Western Illinois enters Saturday’s opener as the owner of the longest losing streak in Division I. The Leathernecks have lost 24 consecutive games since October 2021 and won four since 2019. Their latest win against a Football Bowl Subdivision opponent dates back to Sept. 23, 2017, a 52-10 pummeling of Coastal Carolina University.
But with Western Illinois bringing in a new coaching staff, a new scheme and 72 new players over the offseason, Hammock said he isn’t taking any chances.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty,” Hammock said. “So for us, it’s going to be a game of adjustments … you have to prepare for any and everything in a game like this.”
Western Illinois hired Joe Davis as its 32nd head coach on Dec. 13 to replace Myers Hendrickson, who oversaw the Leathernecks’ back-to-back winless seasons in 2022 and 2023. Davis previously served as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Eastern Illinois University, where he gained some familiarity with NIU.
Davis coached his first game at EIU when the Huskies and Panthers met at Huskie Stadium in the 2022 season opener. NIU held off Eastern Illinois to pull out a 34-27 victory as the Davis-led Panther offense put up 441 yards against the then-reigning MAC champions.
Given NIU’s last brush with Davis and the roster overhaul in Macomb, Hammock said observing what Western Illinois puts on the field and responding accordingly is a must.
“For us, early on, we have to make sure we settle down; we understand what they’re trying to do, and then start to play our game,” Hammock said.
Hammock also named NIU’s first set of weekly captains Tuesday after announcing earlier this summer that he would move away from appointing permanent captains at the beginning of the season.
NIU’s Week 1 captains are as follows: senior linebacker Jaden Dolphin, redshirt junior defensive tackle Skyler Gill-Howard, senior fullback Brock Lampe, redshirt senior offensive lineman J.J. Lippe and senior defensive back Jashon Prophete.
Coming off a season where NIU struggled to keep hold of momentum in games, team leaders like Gill-Howard hope to establish a standard of full-game control in 2024.
“We want to set the tone of a whole team of dominance,” Gill-Howard said. “I feel like, sometimes, we let games slip away, or things will run in our favor and we fall out sometimes, but we want to show that we can be a four-quarter team.”
NIU also unveiled its first two-deep depth chart of the season, which features 26 seniors. Dolphin was one of 17 seniors on NIU’s roster who experienced the Huskies’ winless 2020 season and the worst-to-first MAC title run in 2021.
“I’ve been on winless teams here; I’ve been on championship teams here,” Dolphin said. “And I’ve got a special feeling about this team. I think we could do something special, and I think that that’s the tone we’re trying to set in the first game and carry it through the whole season.”
Though a highly-anticipated matchup with seventh-ranked University of Notre Dame awaits the Huskies next weekend, NIU has dedicated its full attention to its Week 1 foe.
“Obviously, we play a big second game,” Gill-Howard said. “But as of right now, everything is focused on Western Illinois. We’re not looking too far ahead, because when you look too far ahead, that’s when you got caught by surprise.”
Kickoff is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. Saturday at Huskie Stadium. The game will be aired on ESPN+, which requires a subscription, with a radio broadcast available on 949-WDKB. Live statistics can be accessed on SIDEARM Sports.
