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Northern Illinois Huskies wrap up Fall Camp

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Impressions as the Northern Illinois Huskies wrap up Fall Camp.

By Mike Breese
US PRESSWIRE

CAMP WRAPS UP Preseason camp winds down as the Huskies had a "Mock Game" on Saturday to run through what the gameday atmosphere might be as the Huskies take on the Iowa Hawkeyes in Kinnick Stadium next Saturday August 31st.

Coach Carey had a list of players that stepped up this camp:

"There were a bunch of guys who came on and I don't even want to name them because I'm going to forget someone," Carey said. "I think [running back] Cameron Stingily had a great fall camp. [Wide receivers]Da'Ron Brown and A.J. [Angelo] Sebastiano, and [defensive backs] Dechane Durante and Jhony Faustinall played well. I'm really happy with Rock [Rasheen] Lemon and all the linebackers, and the defensive line is starting to come together."

This is good news. The stable is extremely full at both the WR position and with the DBs stepping it up. I'm excited to see what the linebackers can do and where "Rock" (best nickname ever) fits into the situation.

WHAT DO WE KNOW? Camp involves so many mysteries to be resolved. What does HuskieWire take away from this Fall's camp? The #1 thing is that the defense shouldn't be that far off from last year:

Jimmie Ward should be a first-team All-Mid-American Conference pick. Jamaal Bass should be on a different level. Ken Bishop played great on the interior line at the end of last season.

At linebacker, Boomer Mays should do a fine job replacing Victor Jacque in the middle, and the position is deep with Michael Santacaterina and Rasheen Lemon in addition to Bass. Joe Windsor had seven sacks last year and is now in a starting role. Dechane Durante is back as a starting safety after missing some time with injury last season.

Reading that makes me feel fine for a week until we're giving touchdowns up to Iowa, a team that just announced a starting quarterback. Also: WR and RB will be fine and nobody respects NIU still.

LYNCH'S 2013 EXPECTATIONS Chicago Tribune previews the Huskies

"If we want to get back to where we were last year," quarterback Jordan Lynch said, "we have to beat these Big Ten teams and BCS teams. It's not good enough to come close anymore. It's not good enough to lose by a point. We want to finish the fight and that's our motto for the year."

FRESHMEN ON THE FIELD? Huskie Wire boasts that the most likeliest true freshmen to see the field will be WRs Aregeros Turner (at RB maybe), WR Chad Beebe (YES!) and MLB Sean Folliard, who enrolled in the spring.

INJURIES It looks like everyone's pretty much healthy and only RB Akeem Daniels is the biggest question for the Iowa game.

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