NIU notes: Onyebuagu shows off his versatility

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DeKALB – Jason Onyebuagu never had returned a kickoff before Saturday.

It's not easy to find him on special teams, either, as Northern Illinois' left guard doesn't spend a whole lot of time with those units.

But there he was, fielding the opening kickoff in Saturday's 38-3 victory against Western Michigan. Onyebuagu fielded the kick at the NIU 19, barreled over a Bronco defender and rumbled seven yards to the 26.

"Coach [Jerry Kill] asked me earlier in the week to help out blocking-wise and I'm out doing things for the team," Onyebuagu said. "It just so happens that it comes to me and just reacted.

"I probably wasn't supposed to catch it, but, oh well."

Kill said Onyebuagu was back there to be a part of the blocking wedge, but the wind caused the kick to be more of a pooch-style kick and the ball landed in Onyebuagu's hands.

"He caught the pooch kick and I wasn't real fired up about him running the ball and all that, but our team did," Kill said. "Our team was fired up. He'll be one to be on the goal line and he'll think he's The Fridge (former Bear William Perry) or something. We're not going to let that happen."

Onyebuagu also played a significant role in opening up holes for NIU's rushing game as the Huskies ended the game with 255 yards on the ground.

"As offensive linemen, you can feel it, when you're having success running the ball, that was our gameplan early," Onyebuagu said. "That's Huskie football. That's what we wanted to do. We want to establish it early and that's what we did today."

Wind shift: Kill said he checked the wind and the weather reports before the game and thought that the wind would shift, which is exactly what it did in the second quarter.

"We ended up getting the wind twice in the first half because it switched," Kill said.

Turnover free: For the second straight game, NIU did not commit a turnover.

"That was one thing that coach Kill talked about with our pregame speech right before we came out was that if we don't turn the ball over, we'll win," NIU quarterback Chandler Harnish said. "And we did exactly that and we won."

By the numbers: Northern Illinois is 1-0 in the Mid-American Conference for the first time since the 2004 season. ... The Huskies recorded their first win over Western Michigan since 2005. That was also a 35-point decision for the Huskies (42-7)... NIU is 21 of 22 in the red zone this year with 14 touchdowns. ... After entering the game without a single player with 100 receiving yards on the season, Landon Cox and Kyle Skarb ended the game over that mark. After catching three passes for 14 yards on the day, Cox has 13 catches for 107 yards on the season. Skarb's team-leading yardage total stands 121 yards on six receptions.

Quotable: "We played as bad as we could have played. It was a good game for them and an embarrassing game for us. That was probably as bad as it has been in my five years here. They out-toughed us mentally and physically. They were a better football team than us mentally and physically. We weren't tough enough." – Western Michigan coach Bill Cubit.