Football (1-0, 0-0 MAC) will look to continue making wins when it goes up against Murray State (1-0) at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at Huskie Stadium.

The Huskies are coming off their first win of the season against UNLV in a 38-30 game — one that nearly gave the team its second season-opening loss in five years.

Kenny Golladay, MAC West Offensive Player of the Week, and running back Joel Bouagnon put up a large bulk of offense for the Huskies in the win. The two combined for a total of 30 touches and 336 yards. They also scored three touchdowns, accumulating much of the team’s offensive attack.

The Racers are coming off a 52-12 week one victory against Kentucky Wesleyan. Junior quarterback KD Humphries went 25-34, throwing for 385 yards and tossing five touchdowns.

Senior receiver Jeremy Harness caught seven balls for 156 yards and three touchdowns, helping to lead the way in the blowout win. Running back Roman Clay carried the ball 17 times, rushing for 96 yards and a touchdown on the day.

“They are a high tempo spread offense — very high tempo spread offense,” said head coach Rod Carey. “They are very proficient at what they do and how they do it.”

NIU’s defense gave up 17 early points against UNLV and could run into some of those same troubles against a team coming off of a high scoring effort.

“I really like how our defense kept it together,” said defensive lineman Corey Thomas. “We were down for a while in the game, and I didn’t see any sad faces. You always encourage each other and back each other up.”

The game will mark only the second time NIU and Murray State have gone head-to-head, the first being in the 1990 season when the Huskies downed the Racers 49-7. Murray State has a chance to even the all-time series at 1-1 25 years later.

“This is going to be a challenge,” Carey said. “They have two really good interior defensive tackles and a good defense.”

Offensively, two really good wide-outs, really good running back and a quarterback that gets the ball into the playmakers’ hands,” he said. “We have to be ready to meet the challenge.”

It’s still early in the season, and the team has an opportunity to improve on many of its week one mistakes and start the season 2-0 for the third time.

“There’s a lot of stuff in there that I wish would have been better, but they’re not fears,” Carey said. “There are things you have to work on to get better. I think our overall production of our run game wasn’t where I wanted it to be. Our overall tackling — although we had some fine tackles — our tackling wasn’t where I wanted it to be. Those are things you have to work on and get better. We’re going to do that today when we get back on the field.”