Last season, NIU and Toledo played one of the craziest college football games of the season, with the Huskies coming out on top with a 63-60 victory at Toledo.

Each team featured what seemed to be unstoppable, high-powered offenses—that showed at the start of the game. Sophomore Tommylee Lewis returned the opening kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown.

That set the tone for the type of night it was going to be, as each team put up more than 500 yards of total offense. It turned into a duel of quarterbacks as Toledo’s Austin Dantin threw for 321 yards and five touchdowns, all five touchdowns going to Eric Page, who totaled 149 yards.

NIU’s Chandler Harnish got the last laugh, throwing for 265 yards and six touchdowns, including the game-winning 4-yard touchdown pass to senior Perez Ashford with 19 seconds remaining in the game.

Coach Dave Doeren realizes that with a dynamic offensive team like the Rockets, there can be a lot of big plays.

“Last year, we had a lot of explosive plays against us and some of those were a result of missed tackles,” Doeren said in a news conference. “I think when you play a spread team that has a Bernard Reedy and David Fluellen that can run after the handoff and break tackles and run away from you, you’ve got to scorn the ball, you got to get off blocks.”

Looking back on last season’s game, a shootout is not something that the Huskies or Doeren want to find themselves in again. Doeren believes the team can avoid giving up big plays by executing tackling better.

“Schematically, we got to leverage the football the right way,” Doeren said in a news conference. “Like I always talk about, we need to get added people to the ball which means you got to get off of blocks. Whether it is a stop block or cut block or reach block, we’ve got to beat the block and get there.

“We’ve got to play with a lot of speed on defense, which we will. I think our guys are going to run to the ball extremely hard. We didn’t tackle the ball well last year in that game and that is something I think we have done a lot better this season.”

The big key to avoiding a game like last season’s starts with Toledo’s running back, Fluellen, as he leads the MAC in yards with 1381 yards and has also run for 12 touchdowns.

“I think for us, our focus is stopping the run,” said senior defensive tackle Nabal Jefferson in a news conference. “Making them throw, and getting after them on third down; having them get in third and long, and you know, just getting off the field on third down [is key]. Getting [our offense] the ball [is huge].”