After a seemingly improbable comeback victory over the Iowa Hawkeyes (0-1), the NIU Huskies (1-0) will be off this weekend, hoping to recover and improve.

The Huskies defeated the Hawkeyes 30-27 Saturday, scoring 10 unanswered points to complete the comeback victory. After such a physically taxing game, the team is excited to be off this weekend.

“Early bye weeks can be a bad thing or a good thing,” said head coach Rod Carey in a news release. “I think we’re going to use it as a good thing just because it was a physical football game, that way it’s a real benefit for us. You’d like to have your bye week right in the middle of the year, but we don’t. So we’re going this way with it, and we’ll use it for recruiting and young guy development and for our team and [moving] forward, which is a big key for us.”

The Huskies have already moved on from the season-opening victory, setting their focus on the Idaho Vandals (0-1). Although the matchup with the Vandals is still more than a week away, the Huskies are already game planning.

“Something that’s good about a bye week is you get the young guys a lot of extra reps,” said redshirt senior offensive lineman Jared Volk in a news release. “This week is more to get our legs back. We’re still going to start early looking at Idaho. We’re going to turn the page and go to the next game and just get a head start on the game as well as getting some young guys some reps. We’ve just got to take it one day at a time and get better every single time.”

The Huskies will have plenty of Idaho tape to look at, as the Vandals play this weekend. On the other hand, the Huskies will have time to look at their offense and defense, which were far from perfect.

“Obviously, it was a good win,” Carey said in a news release. “You know it was one of those games that had a lot of ups and downs to it and momentum swings. [There was] a lot of good stuff to learn from and, you know, we put it to bed on Sunday, and so now we’re in full swing mode going forward. Our assistant coaches did a great job getting our guys in the right place at the right time and our guys did a good job executing. Overall, I was really happy for our assistant coaches and our players.”

Despite the thrilling season-opening win, redshirt senior quarterback Jordan Lynch is one of the many players taking advantage of the off week, both physically and mentally.

“Just like everyone else is saying, it’s a chance for us to get our legs back, watch some college football, and we’ll be anxious to get back out on the field,” Lynch said in a news release.