Last season was the start of a new era in NIU football. An unknown entity named Chandler Harnish stepped into the starting role at quarterback in the Huskies first game versus Minnesota. The redshirt freshman threw for 326 yards and two touchdowns.

As Harnish entered MAC play, the mystery of a new quarterback led to 1,528 yards, eight touchdowns, nine interceptions and also a team leading 539 rushing yards.

Heading into the 2009 season, Harnish is no longer a mystery. Neither is his redshirt sophomore comrade, DeMarcus Grady, who also saw starts last year due to injuries to Harnish and senior Dan Nicholson. The in-game experience has helped increase the learning curve for both QBs.

“Coming into spring ball, one thing I really noticed was I’m able to focus on the small things,” Harnish said. “Last year, I was trying to learn an offense, trying to learn the big picture, but now this year, I pretty much understand what we’re trying to do and we’re able to build on that and do a lot of different things with wide receivers and backs, so its going a lot better.”

This season leaves second year head coach Jerry Kill with two experienced quarterbacks and also redshirt freshman Brandon Rogers to enter as a backup. The Huskies will also have a different look to the receiving corps., as Matt Simon, Britt Davis and Marcus Perez have all graduated, leaving Nathan Palmer, Marcus Lewis and Landon Cox to take over. As Kill pointed out, this year’s receivers all have in-game experience.

“The good thing is all the kids that we have played last year and they’ve got a lot of experience in there,” Kill said. “We’re not near as deep as we were a year ago, therefore these kids are getting more reps. In some ways not having as much depth, as long as we can stay healthy, our timing is a little bit better and things of nature.”

Even though Harnish stands out as the Huskies’ likely starter, both he and Grady recognize that competition is always a part of the game, especially if one guy isn’t getting the job done.

“Competition is always a great thing as far as the quarterback position because if you mess up and the other guy does well, then you need to come back the next play and have a good play to rebuttal what he is doing,” Harnish said. “The fact that they’re understanding what we’re doing, we’re able to bounce ideas off each other and get a picture of what we’re doing and it helps us all develop as quarterbacks.”

Grady also recognizes the competition factor, but also said the quarterbacks are reliant on each other.

“There’s always competition, we’re always trying to get better but at the same time we need each other,” Grady said. “We both have a good relationship going and we help each other. So there’s a bit of a competition but at the same time we need each other, so we’re going to work with each other to try and improve.”

Grady, who has been often labeled as the ‘running quarterback,’ is working hard in practice to try and shed that label. He said he’s been working on footwork, throwing the ball and developing a base. Grady commented that he feels as if he is far ahead of where he was last year.

As Grady looks to improve on mechanics he also looks to improve on diminishing turnovers, something both Kill and Harnish look to reduce.

“One of the things we started off saying right at the beginning of spring ball was we need to limit our interceptions and I think that comes with just being able to read different coverages and play consistent football,” Harnish said. “There’s nothing special about it, there’s no special type of ingredient that we need to do but we need to be consistent and just understand what we’re trying to do as an offense.”