Red And Black Attack - An unofficial Northern Illinois Huskies blog

More great Blogs

Safety Lynch rocking the #5 as captain via www.usafootball.com

View full size photo uploaded July 3, 2009

The destruction so far:

Game 1: USA 78, France 0 (3 tackles)

Game 2: USA 55, Mexico 0 (3 tackles)

Geez, take it easy on the rest of the world, guys. Who's next? USA vs Canada for the gold Sunday @ Noon.

There will actually be an online telecast for the championship and the rest of the games located here: Jr. World Championship of American Football

According to TNIAAM, it should be a good watch:

The highlight (or lowlight) of the experience was discovered thanks to Dan who found out the game was being live-streamed on the Interweb. If by chance you are available on Sunday to watch the championship game, I highly recommend you tune in. The play-by-play commentators are bad. I mean Best In Show bad. So bad they actually started openly apologizing at one point. It's really something to witness.

Don't blow your fingers off this weekend, kiddies.

0 comments | 0 recs |

2010 Recruiting: Indiana CB commits, Big 10 making rounds

by Mike Breese on Jul 2, 2009 8:58 PM CDT in Football Comment 0 comments

As the majority of us are getting our grills ready for the 4th of July, prospective student athletes are looking hard at where they stand in the recruiting game. Long-time recruiting guru Tom Lemming rings in with some advice from his Sun-Times Blog:

Remember, June is the most important month for offers. Kids who have only one or two offers attend one-day camps in June. If you have no offers by July 1, then it is time to worry and to get aggressive in the recruiting process. If you don't have an offer by then, there must be a reason why. Maybe you have to cut your dreams down. Not everybody can play in the Big 10 or SEC. Look at the MAC or Gateway Conference.

Lemming wasn't kidding as there seems like a slew of prospects have committed recently to their lucky suitors.

Most notably, Cornerback Jeff Garrett out of Ben Davis HS in Indiana has committed to the Huskies.

CB Jeff Garrett

Indianapolis (IN) Ben Davis
5'9" 170 lbs
40 time: 4.5 secs
Bench max: 275 lbs
Squat max: 450 lbs
Vertical: 40"
Shuttle: 4.2 secs

Other offers: Akron, Ball State, Bowling Green & Ohio

Rivals Profile
Scout Profile: 3-stars, #65 CB

Garrett is on the smallish side at 5'9" 170ish, but has good quickness...or does he? He has combine numbers all over the place. Let's take a look.

Rivals says he runs a 4.5 second 40 time, which is probably straight from Garrett's mouth. Scout says he runs a 4.58. This sounds more reasonable, he must have been rounding down. However ESPN says he ran a 4.69 and jumped a 40" vertical at the same combine. I think they may have the 40 time a tenth of a second higher on accident. The 40" vertical is impressive if true. I wonder why they don't list it on the Scout site? 4.25 is great for a shuttle time.

Whatever the discrepancies may be, I'm excited to have Jeff as a new member of the Northern Illinois football team unofficially of course. It's pretty awesome Scout has him ranked so high as the #65 ranked CB in the entire nation. Not to mention we beat out some good MAC schools that were after him in Akron, BSU & Ohio.

That's the good news. The semi-bad news is that we lost out on a lot of other prospects that we had offers extended out to, including 3 in-state prospects...

Poll

How do you feel about Coach Kill's recruiting so far?

Continue reading this post »

0 comments | 0 recs |

NIU Soccer Coach Steve Simmons Leaves for Oregon State

Simmons built Northern Illinois soccer program from the ground up to national prominence. He will be dearly missed by Huskie Nation.

7 days ago Mike Breese comment 2 comments 0 recs

Chandler Harnish NCAA 2010 Cover

by Mike Breese on Jun 26, 2009 1:36 PM CDT in Football Comment 0 comments

Enough bashing of EA...use this for your NCAA 2010 cover if you choose to buy it:

via img.photobucket.com

0 comments | 0 recs

NIU burned by EA Sports yet again

by Mike Breese on Jun 26, 2009 11:28 AM CDT in Football Comment 0 comments

If there's a game that defines my high school days, it's the NCAA Football series of video games. When the PlayStation 2 came out, one of the first games that I picked up was NCAA 2002 with Chris Weinke on it. It was love at first sight. At this point in my life, I wanted to play college football, just because I would be featured in these NCAA games. It was a rush for me to play as players I knew that played at NIU or other colleges already.

I loved running the dynasties with Northern Illinois culminating in their rightfully deserved BCS games and National Championships. I haven't played the games in a while because A. too broke to buy the new game every year B. was focusing too much on "studying" at the time or C. I don't even own one of those new-fangled X-Box 360s or PS3s.

Then I see this video posted about what Huskie Stadium will look and feel like in the upcoming NCAA 2010 game. Having faith in EA Sports is never a good idea, as they have burned me several times in the past. So, did they get everything right this time?

Continue reading this post »

0 comments | 0 recs |

Interview with Purdue blog Hammer and Rails

SB Nation's own interviews yours truly about the Sep. 19 showdown between the Huskies and Boilermakers in West Lafayette.

Maybe I should get started with previews for our 2009 opponents...

8 days ago Mike Breese comment 0 comments 0 recs

NIU-Purdue Game Time, TV dates announced

by Mike Breese on Jun 24, 2009 3:34 PM CDT in Football Comment 0 comments

The MAC released their 2009 football TV schedule. We all know this one:

Saturday, Sept. 5

Northern Illinois at Wisconsin, 6 pm (Big Ten Network)

Two new times are announced for the Huskies

Saturday, Sept. 19

Northern Illinois at Purdue, 11 am (Big Ten Network)

Saturday, Oct. 31

Akron at Northern Illinois, 11 am (ESPN Plus/GamePlan)

It's nice to see some good old-fashioned 11 am starts on a Saturday being televised. Looking forward to watching those games. Now for the OR games:

Thursday, Nov. 5

Miami at Temple or Eastern Michigan at NIU, 6:30 pm (ESPNU)

Thursday, Nov. 12

Ball State at NIU or BGSU at Miami, 5 pm (ESPNU)

Friday, Nov. 27

ESPNU (10 am)/ESPN360.com multiple selection date

EMU at Akron, Buffalo at Kent State, Temple at Ohio, NIU at CMU, Toledo at BGSU

I really don't see us being shut out by ESPNU for either of the games that we are up against, but you never know. For that last one, it's a MAC-stravaganza the day after Thanksgiving.

0 comments | 0 recs |

An ensuing recruiting coup of Wisconsin?

by Mike Breese on Jun 24, 2009 2:01 PM CDT in Football Comment 3 comments

[Note by Mike Breese, 07/02/09 12:13 PM CDT ]

Both of these players have since committed to the Minnesota Gophers, apparently the new force in Wisconsin recruiting.

The Badger state has been quite kind to Northern Illinois in the past providing us the kind of underlooked athlete exemplified by current Dallas Cowboys OT Doug Free. Our offensive coordinator/OL coach Matt Limegrover has taken over duties north of the border recruiting top-ranked S Jody VanLaanen last year along with DT Zach Anderson & OT Jared Volk as incoming recruits, both ranking as top-10 players in Wisconsin.

This year we're aiming extremely high at the #1 and #2 players in Wisconsin, both linemen. In my opinion, it is going to come down to how much playing time each of these players desire. If they want to sit on the bench they can go to a mid-level Big 10 school like Minnesota or Indiana. If they want to make more of an impact, then they should come to NIU. Both players also don't appear to have offers from the Badgers, which is unusual. Hopefully this is just the start and there is more talent waiting in the wings up north.

DT Zac Epping

Kenosha (WI) Kenosha Tremper
6'3" 274 lbs
40 time: 5.72 secs
Squat max: 470 lbs
Vertical: 24"
Shuttle: 5.01 secs

Other offers: Minnesota & Western Michigan

Rivals Profile: 3-stars, 5.5, #1 player in Wisconsin
Scout Profile: 3-stars, #36 DT

ZacEpping.com

GopherSports:

He said Wisconsin does not rank high on his list. His top 3 are Minnesota, Northern Illinois, Central Michigan. Wisconsin wanted him to go to their one day camp that was earlier this week and he turned them down and in his own words basically ruled Wisconsin out of the picture.

Youtube: