Views: Little things hurt Huskies
By JOHN SAHLY
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jsahly@daily-chronicle.com
For more NIU coverage, visit HuskieWire.com
DeKALB – Saturday, Northern Illinois got to see and feel first-hand how Purdue felt the previous week, postgame head-scratching included.
A road underdog comes in and outplays, in every facet of the game, the home squad that's feeling good about itself. The road team wins the battle in the trenches, converts third downs at a video game-like rate, bottles up the home team's significant run threats, makes a play on special teams and ultimately hangs on for a victory.
Those were the same things being said and written about NIU the previous week after its upset of the Boilermakers. On the other side of it this week, it left the Huskies bewildered at what happened, especially in the first half, against the Vandals.
"We're all in shock right now but I'm not taking anything from Idaho," safety Mike Sobol said. "They executed. We didn't."
Those last four words from Sobol summed up NIU's day best. The same plays the Huskies consistently made against Purdue were being made against the Huskies this week by an Idaho team that's probably better than anyone thought.
Even when NIU adjusted, Idaho was one step ahead, like on a critical third-and-3 on the final drive. Idaho quarterback Nathan Enderle threw a great pass to wideout Eric Greenwood down the sideline, who made a great catch. Cornerback Chris Smith couldn't do a thing about it.
"You play off, the guy's going to throw the hitch for the first down so you make them throw the toughest pass in football and they executed," NIU coach Jerry Kill said. "They just executed. We made those kinds of plays a week ago against Purdue. They made them today."
"Just looking out there, we were flying around the ball," Sobol said. "We just didn't wrap up. We didn't do the little things."
With the non-conference schedule out of the way, I think we've got a much better idea of what will define this NIU team. It won't be one game – Saturday proved that – one drive or one player.
The fundamentals, the little things that are the foundation of execution, will define this team.
When NIU does them right by blocking, tackling and running the ball effectively, the Huskies are in any ballgame. When it doesn't, games like Saturday and the first three quarters of Wisconsin happen. That sounds almost too simplistic, but the evidence after four games has been laid out pretty clearly.
Neither the Purdue victory or the Idaho loss are accurate pictures of what the Huskies are or will be at the end of this season. How well they perform the little things will decide which side of the scale they end up closer to by November.
• John Sahly is a sports reporter for the Daily Chronicle. He can be reached at jsahly@daily-chronicle.com.
