Ben Gross: It’s not over yet. They’ve played two games. And yes, they’re 0-2.

But the last two seasons they started out 0-2 and look what happened: A MAC Championship game where they lost in the last two seconds and a trip to a bowl game out in beautiful California.

They’ve been 0-2 the last two years and persevered, so I don’t think you can call it quits yet.

Brandon Mangia: It’s definitely not over yet. I just don’t know whether or not they’ll be able to bounce back from the Southern game. It was such a demoralizing loss.

They dominated and then basically blew it the last five minutes of the game. Yeah, they can still win the MAC West and run the table. But I see a disappointing season ahead.

Ben: That’s the key there. They are 0-0 in the MAC right now. You look at the West and you’ve got Eastern Michigan and Ball State. Yeah, they are two up-and-coming teams but Northern can beat them. You’ve got Central Michigan and they’re a tough team, yeah.

Northern’s beat them nine straight times. Could they be their Toledo? Maybe. You never know. Toledo: Yes, we’ve had problems with them. But we’ve got Danny Nicholson who went there two years ago and beat them.

Then there’s Western Michigan and that’s the team to beat. It’s going to be tough, but if this team starts going on a roll, they could run the table and make a run at another MAC Championship.

Brandon: I just don’t know. NIU maybe won’t even have that big of a home-field advantage after what had happened Saturday against Southern. And back to the MAC West: Yeah, they can beat those teams, but they have key injuries and I don’t know if they’ll be able to recover from that.

Ben: I agree. The injuries to McCarthy and Clanton are huge. But they have depth there. Justin Anderson and Chad Spann at running back. Then there’s John Tranchitella coming in at middle linebacker and Cory Hanson who had a great season last year.

So there’s some depth. At tight end they’re missing David Koronkiewicz and Reed Cunningham. And Davis is a day-to-day situation. We are not going to know what to expect out of the tight end and that’s a huge position in this offense. Injuries will be a factor but could be for any team coming up.

Brandon: Let’s just hope Anderson doesn’t go down because he looked strong on Saturday and it seems like he can pretty much do it all. If they have no more injuries the rest of the year, maybe.

But still, I just don’t think they’ve got it this year. This seems like it may be a shoulda-coulda-woulda season. To me, this season seems like more of a build-up to next year.

Ben: No doubt last week was a great disappointment. Three years ago, SIU came in here and almost beat us and NIU went on to win nine games and go to the Silicon Valley bowl game.

It’s always just such a crazy outcome against Southern. Last week Southern had tipped balls that turned into touchdowns. What other game can you expect that at?

Brandon: Yeah, it was crazy but maybe that’s indicative of how the season will be. Regardless of injuries, NIU isn’t going to do anything with Nicholson throwing three interceptions a game.

Yeah, he did have 15 completions in a row and, yeah, he can look great at times. But the interceptions need to be reduced to even give NIU a chance at the division.

Ben: As long as no one starts to say there’s a bad Nicholson and good Nicholson. We don’t need that. Dan had an NIU record 15 straight completions and had two interceptions and the last one was a Hail Mary, so yeah, it’s an interception in the stat book.

But where was everyone else on the offense trying to stop those touchdowns? Those were long TD runs. He did make some mistakes and hopefully he thinks twice before throwing into heavy coverage because he really does have the potential to be a great quarterback.

Brandon: We’ll just see how he bounces back this week. It’ll be interesting the next couple weeks.

Ben: I’m still under the opinion that anyone that is jumping off the ship now is coming back in a couple weeks.