Having 15 credit hours of class and 20 hours of practice each week isn’t easy. The underclassmen football players take on an even bigger class load – learning the playbook. I Sophomore wide receiver Sam Hurd remembers how difficult it was to get a grasp on the playbook when he arrived on campus in August 2002. I “I looked at it and said, ‘Are you serious? I have to learn all this?’” Hurd said. “My entirefreshman year I had to wake up at six in the morning to learn before I went to class. I had to put in two hours in the morning and two hours at night after practice just for the playbook, and that’s just because I was playing last year. It’s still hard to learn now because we put new plays in every day. I don’t think any one of us on this team knows the entire playbook.”

The person with the toughest learning process is the starting quarterback, Hurd said. He has the responsibility of making sure everyone knows their routes, their blocking assignments and the formation of each play.

Junior Josh Haldi said the process is one that takes time.

“As a quarterback, it takes years to learn the playbook,” Haldi said. “You don’t just come in your freshman year and expect to know it all. I would say that I didn’t grasp the book until the spring of my redshirt freshman year. It takes a little longer as a quarterback.”

Hurd said learning the plays aren’t the hard part, but the formations for the 80-plus plays are most difficult.

Just like in class, there are punishments for not studying and reading up on the material.

“If you jump offsides or run the wrong route, you’ve got to do bear crawls, at least 200 yards of them,” Hurd said. “If it gets worse, then you’ve got 600 of them and then if it still gets worse, you’ve got dawn patrol. That’s six o’clock in the morning, hour workout, in the freezing weather and inside cardio. You’re easily going to throw up on yourself.”

The dawn workouts were something Hurd and fellow receiver Shatone Powers experienced most frequently, Hurd said.

“I think we got the NIU record,” Hurd said.

For the underclassmen that struggle to learn the playbook, Huskie captain P.J. Fleck offers advice.

“I tell them, don’t look at too much too soon,” fifth-year senior Fleck said. “Learn the plays first, then the formations second because there are certain plays that can be run out of every formation.”

The playbook is changed weekly depending on the opponent. Plays and/or formations can be altered or added.

The book itself is 260-270 pages and is divided into certain aspects like screens or slants.

NIU coach Joe Novak said with all the time the players put into football, they’d almost be better off getting a paying job.

“Our kids spend at least 20 hours a week with us during the season. I hate to say it, but it might be more than they spend on any of their other classes,” Novak said. “These kids, even the ones on scholarship, would do better working at McDonald’s for the hours they put in than they do here. And I don’t think all the students understand that. It’s a lot of work, a lot of time and a lot of sacrifice.”

Some players compare it to their other classes.

“It is definitely like another class,” Hurd said. “My hardest class.”