MADISON, Wis. – Going into Saturday’s game against Wisconsin, if one were to look at NIU’s receiver core it would seem that the Huskies would be in trouble.

Senior P.J. Fleck and junior receivers Keith Perry, Mike Archie and Turner Pugh were all out of action.

This forced NIU coach Joe Novak to look elsewhere for key players to step up. And he found them in two young receivers. Sophomore Dan Sheldon had 5 catches for 75 yards while true freshman Sam Hurd hauled in 8 catches for 160 yards.

Going into Saturday’s game, Hurd only had 53 yards receiving in two games. By halftime versus Wisconsin, he nearly had doubled it with 100 yards.

“Sam played,” Novak said. “He’s the youngest guy on our team. 17-years-old, the boy played like he was a lot older than that.”

Novak even joked that Hurd might not be old enough to drive yet. Hurd laughed at Novak’s comment, but makes it clear that despite his age he is ready to play at the college level. He also has his teammates, who he calls his family away from San Antonio, to thank for that.

“Keith Perry has been like a big brother to me,” Hurd said. “He really showed me how to do the plays, because I’m still young and I messed up a little in practice.”

With that practice, Hurd said he enabled himself to come out and have a breakout game. The fact that Wisconsin was playing one-on-one with the speedy 6-foot-3 Hurd didn’t hurt either.

“Both of the [defensive backs] were targets because they were playing man-to-man,” Hurd said. “Usually man to man, they shouldn’t get burnt. Not to be cocky, but we got by.”

One thing Hurd does somewhat attributes to his inexperience was a scuffle he got into with a Wisconsin player, where both players earned 15-yard penalties.

“He hit me and I hit him back, and it was a stupid penalty,” Hurd said. “I should have just walked away.”

Another thing Hurd said will not happen again, aside from his temper, are teams underestimating him.

“I feel they underestimated us until about the second quarter when they started to play harder … teams may come after me more because I’m a freshman, and they think they can break me, but I’m not going to be broken,” Hurd said.