Huskies try to move on after loss
By KEVIN DRULEY – Shaw Suburban Media
For more NIU coverage, visit HuskieWire.com
DeKALB – Northern Illinois safety Tracy Wilson appealed to football’s version of a mulligan Saturday, seeing the Huskies’ 34-31 home loss to Idaho through brown and gold-tinged glasses.
Those are the colors Western Michigan wears, though the Broncos likely will be sporting their traditional road whites when they travel to Huskie Stadium to begin MAC play this week.
Ready to move on from an up-and-down month of non-conference games, NIU appreciates the clean slate either way. The Huskies know they had chances to defeat Idaho but have pledged to move on.
“We build on this knowing that we let one get away,” Wilson said. “We let one get away, we had our bad game. But we can’t have anymore bad games, especially going into conference. Our bad one is out the window.”
Chosen by media to finish second in the MAC West in a preseason poll, Western Michigan enters Saturday’s 2:30 p.m. game with a 2-2 record that matches the Huskies. Among the differences, though, is that the Broncos have played a conference game, defeating Miami (Ohio) 48-26 on Sept. 19.
NIU finished third in the West in the same poll but hasn’t put much stock in it.
“All the goals that we want to have are in front of us,” Northern Illinois coach Jerry Kill said. “That’s the bottom line.”
Winning their MAC division and playing in a bowl game go hand-in-hand, and the Huskies realize their journey outside the conference prepared them for the next eight games within it.
Wisconsin offered one of the most crazed environments the program will yet see, while a trip to fellow Big Ten school Purdue showed the Huskies they can win in one.
Though Idaho presented a big defensive front that hurried and hit NIU quarterback Chandler Harnish, it was the redshirt sophomore’s resolve after the game that the Huskies liked.
“I’m feeling it now,” Harnish said, “but that’s football and we’ll be just fine.”
Saturday marked the 1,000th game in program history, and Northern Illinois led just once, on Mike Salerno’s 23-yard field goal with 8:57 to play in the first quarter.
Wilson called game No. 1,001 a new challenge, not to mention a new counting point.
“We can still go undefeated in the MAC and make (the Idaho loss) something you forget about,” Wilson said. “It all starts again this week.”
