There will be no Huskie football game Saturday as NIU is faced with its first off week of the year.

NIU fought hard against Minnesota and Western Michigan in the first two weeks of the season, but came up on the short end both times. The Huskies lost both games by a combined seven points.

Next up for the Huskies is Football Championship Subdivision (formerly 1-AA) Indiana State.

The Sycamores are 0-1 on the season, losing to 52-0 to Eastern Michigan in the season opener. NIU beat Indiana State 48-14 on September 23, 2006.

The off, or bye week, comes earlier than normal this year after only two games. Last season the Huskies’ first bye week came in week 10.

However, NIU head coach Jerry Kill feels that the bye week doesn’t come at a bad time this year.

“In our situation, being a new coaching staff, it’s a tremendous thing,” said Kill, who is still searching for his first win as NIU head coach. “We’ve had to go so fast, being that we had so many injured players that didn’t go through the spring. For us, this is a good time.”

Then there are the injury situations.

Quarterback Chandler Harnish sprained his foot in NIU’s 29-26 loss at Western Michigan. Harnish was walking on crutches during practice this week and is out indefinitely.

Defensive end Larry English had surgery on his right thumb Tuesday.

English broke his thumb at Minnesota and played with a cast last week at Western Michigan. Kill says English should be ready to go next week.

“He’s doing well,” Kill said of the 2007 MAC MVP. “He’ll be ready to go.”

Fullback Kyle Skarb says the timing of the bye week doesn’t matter to him.

“It really makes no difference to me, I just want to play every week, I guess,” Skarb said. “It’s tough having a bye week but it’s good to have one to get an extra week of looking at your opponent.”

“Coming off the week that we just came from, I kind of like it because we have a lot of time to correct things,” said freshman running back Me’co Brown, who has carried the ball 17 times the first two games. “Get better at the things that we’re weak in.”