NIU Huskies run past Toledo Rockets 63-60, take MAC West lead

What a EPIC game… I paced in front of my TV for 3 1/2 hours. Glad we had a chance to showcase our offense on the national stage like that… might be needed to secure us a bowl later this year.

eat my words……in earlier posts I predicted a Huskie loss.
We have an unbelievable offense, and some real stud WR’s. Our defense? well, I saw poor tackling and guys getting faked out of their shoes

It was truly “last team with the ball wins”……actually those last two penalties against us on the final drive turned out to be a real positive – it ran the clock down
We now have a shot at the MAC championship…..BUT, let’s not get too cocky, and forget about the BG game next wk…..guard against a letdown.

Before the game, I thought the Huskies would lose. At halftime, I thought the Huskie would probably lose. With 8 seconds left, I thought we could still lose.

But we won. How many of those games have we lost? The 2005 MAAC to (cough) Akron? The 2010 MAAC?

And to beat Turdkedo in the glASS Bowl? On ESPN? In 3D? Priceless!.

Our D is still horrible, but I’ll worry about the tomorrow.

Detroit is about 6hrs away. Just getting ahead of myself.

You win as a team and you lose as a team. The Huskies are currently conference leaders, only one team in our division can make that claim. I watched the game twice now (I know get a life). Our Offense is off-the-chart incredible, and the coaching staff has devised a scheme which takes full advantage of one of the nation’s best QBs, a strong OL, and a talent group of skill players. The down side of this hurry-up, no huddle, run a play before the Defense resets, approach is that time of possession is compromised. When the opponent has a similar strategy (which most of our opponents, including UT, do) a track meet breaks out, and the number of plays run, skyrockets. This is today’s football, like it or not. In a traditional, old-school grind it out, huddle up offense, a 15 play drive could take 12 minutes of clock. With today’s offense a 15 play drive could take less than 5 minutes of clock. On average each NIU play (the play itself plus the time between snaps) took 25 seconds. Thus the play counts are incredibly high. Our tackling must improve, but Toledo’s offense, like ours, gets great athletes in space forcing the defense to make open field tackles. Durante for example made several great plays, but we will remember the play where a gifted receiver made him look silly on an open field tackle. Finally, UT ran nearly 90 offensive plays, unlike past games, we stayed with the same nickel package and same personnel particularly at LB. Bass, who has played very well of late, played very little, and Santa I believe had two tackles on only 2 defensive plays. The rest of the game it was Schiller and Delegal. They were out there for a nearly 90 plays. UT’s Offensive Line was dominant. In the end a win is a win!