Rozner: Young Huskies prevail in Battle of Illinois

One might accurately suggest that these are college football programs headed in opposite directions, but at its core that's probably an insult to Northern Illinois.

Having turned the page on the Jordan Lynch era, the Huskies merely began a new chapter Saturday afternoon by dominating Northwestern in the second half and leaving Evanston with a 23-15 victory.

For the Wildcats (0-2), it was their ninth loss in 10 games, their lone victory in that stretch a field-goal escape to end last season against a 4-8 Illinois team that won a single game in the Big Ten last year.

For the Huskies (2-0), it was their third straight win against a Big Ten team, 25th consecutive regular-season victory and 16th in a row on the road, the nation's longest FBS streak.

With 48 wins the last four years, NIU ranks second among all FBS teams behind only Oregon.

So you could argue that this is merely a continuation for the Huskies, but then there's no arguing who's been the best college football team in Illinois the last four years.

Still, after a game billed Saturday as one that would decide bragging rights and top billing in the state, the Huskies would have none of it.

"We beat a team that's real close to us, which is great, but it's still Game 2," said NIU coach Rod Carey. "We have to fly halfway across the country next week and we have to play (UNLV).

"We're super excited about (winning) and we'll enjoy it for 24 hours, but I'm not going to get into any of that back and forth. I have too much respect for Coach (Pat) Fitzgerald and Northwestern."

A crowd of 41,139 - more than half red and louder in support of the visitors - watched a scoreless first half even as a young Huskies defense had trouble getting off the field on third down against a more experienced Wildcats offense.

Northwestern then grabbed a 7-3 lead with 4:51 left in the third quarter as the Cats went 60 yards in four plays and less than a minute, shredding the kids in the NIU secondary.

But from there, NIU scored 3 straight touchdowns to take control of the game, often with help from Northwestern penalties (9) that totaled 93 yards.

"I saw a lot of things in the second half that we have to eliminate from our game," Fitzgerald said. "From a character standpoint, I thought we lost our poise, which allowed Northern to do the things they wanted to do.

"It seemed like every time we made a big play, we did something penalty-wise which would just kill any sort of momentum."

NIU started the game with junior QB Matt McIntosh, who was the best of the three-headed monster last week, but he missed a couple throws to wide-open receivers in the first half Saturday.

McIntosh was outplayed by sophomore Anthony Maddie, who entered midway through the second quarter and led the Huskies on a 14-play drive that ended with a missed field goal.

And then Maddie was bested by fellow sophomore Drew Hare, who played the entire second half and would seem to have taken the starter's job based on 6-of-10 throwing for 90 yards and 2 TD strikes to burner Da'Ron Brown, and 11 rushes for 44 yards and another TD.

It was a surprise when Hare replaced Maddie to start the second half, but Carey says nothing is set in stone and that the plan is still to play all three.

"Drew came in and played great," Carey said. "We have three good quarterbacks. I've been telling you that. It's a good problem to have, but, nonetheless, it's a problem."

It didn't seem like much of a problem when Hare took over in the second half, and if Carey is intending to let the players decide on the field, Hare probably made the next phase easy on the head coach.

"We just stuck to the game plan," Hare said. "(The Wildcats) knew we have three good guys and I just needed to be ready. I was just trying to do what I was coached to do."

While Northwestern seems to be in trouble on both sides of the ball - and a full-blown disaster on special teams - Northern has a young defense that got a large dose of Big Ten experience Saturday - holding the Cats to zero yards rushing in the second half - and some huge weapons on offense just waiting for a QB to take charge.

As for bragging rights, well, NIU has a history now of setting its sights higher than winning the second game of the season, having won more games against Big Ten teams a year ago (two) than any team in the state.

Odd as it may be to say it, at the moment Northwestern might settle for less.

brozner@dailyherald.com

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