DeKALB — Fresh off their fourth straight loss, the Huskies are sitting squarely in the suck.
A 25-14 defeat by rival Miami (Ohio) on Homecoming dropped NIU to 1-4 on the season — their lone victory coming against a still-winless Holy Cross — and 0-1 in MAC play. With the season nearly half gone, head coach Thomas Hammock knows things have to start clicking, and fast.
“We have to be able to play a better brand of complimentary football, and really, that starts with me,” Hammock said. “(I’ve) got to be able to show our coaches, our players what it takes to play complimentary football in all three phases and for four quarters, and we haven’t been able to do that.”
The Huskies haven’t cracked 20 points in a game all season. They rank second-to-last nationally in scoring offense (11 points per game) and total offense (242.8 yards per game). To boot, they’ll have a true freshman making just his second career start at quarterback.
Still, there’s an opportunity to get back on track ahead.
This Saturday, NIU will face what might be its lightest test so far: an Eastern Michigan team still searching for its first MAC win after a double-overtime loss to Buffalo. The Eagles (1-5, 0-2 MAC) have given up at least 24 points in every game this season.
It’s not quite an unstoppable force versus an immovable object — more like the exact opposite. Even so, Hammock expects Eastern Michigan to be a challenge in its own right.
The Eagles have a seasoned leader at the helm in Chris Creighton, now in his 12th season at EMU. They also feature a crafty offense, an adaptable defense and a special teams unit that won’t hesitate to try a fake.
“It’s a well-coached team,” Hammock said of Eastern Michigan. “I think he (Creighton) does a good job of finding ways to create an advantage to win a game, and we know we have to play our best football to offset that.”
Road reset
As they prepare for Saturday’s meeting in Ypsilanti, the Huskies aren’t wallowing in the suck of their 1-4 start; they’re embracing it — along with the challenge of playing on the road.
Though NIU’s coaching staff will have little control over the gameday environment at Rynearson Stadium, they’ll have far more control of the environment leading up to it. Hammock explained during his Tuesday press conference that traveling helps players reset by taking them out of DeKalb — and away from the everyday distractions that can arise at home.
“When you go on the road, we can control the environment,” Hammock said. “We can control what time they go to bed, what time they wake up, when they eat, when they move, when they do different things. I think it allows us to focus a little bit better.”
That control expands beyond routines, too. Hammock said he’s working to eliminate an issue that’s impacted his team for multiple weeks: playing well in practice, only to underperform on game days.
“I have to do a better job of getting these guys to understand: Don’t make the game bigger than what it is,” Hammock said. “There’s external things that they worry about that they shouldn’t. Go play the game, and have fun and play as hard as you can play.”
Fixing the details
Meanwhile, NIU is working to correct the issues that plagued them for the final three quarters of their last outing. After taking a 14-0 lead over Miami, the Huskies gained just 84 yards offensively the rest of the game, while the defense let up 23 points and allowed the RedHawks to convert eight third downs and dominate the time-of-possession battle (39:06-20:64).
As far as offensive solutions go, right tackle Izuchukwu “Izzy” Ozoh said it boils down to personnel executing their duties without taking a play off.
“We just all have to do our 1-11, do our job every play,” Ozoh said. “And we have to treat every play like that play is the play that will win the game or break out.”
Defensively, cornerback Donte Harrison echoed Ozoh’s sentiment, noting that the details become ever so important — especially at this point in the season.
“We just have to get back to doing our job and focus on the details every play, every moment,” Harrison said. “Because, obviously, it matters.”
