For NIU, injuries piling up faster than losses
To break up the dreary six-hour bus ride from DeKalb to Toledo, Northern Illinois scheduled a stop Friday at the College Football Hall of Fame in South Bend.
There was no truth to the rumor Hall of Fame officials planned to honor the Huskies for setting the record for most injuries in a single season.
Even if that had been a possibility, NIU coach Joe Novak would have tersely declined the honor.
"I don't even talk about injuries anymore," he said Thursday.
But here are the cruel, painful facts that have stacked up during Northern Illinois' 1-7 start heading into Saturday's Mid-American Conference battle at Toledo.
-- Ten Huskies are out for the year, including three opening-day starters and two others who likely would have started if healthy.
-- When true freshman linebacker Kyle Skarb (Lake Zurich) suffered a high ankle sprain that knocked him out for at least the Toledo game, he became the 26th Huskie on the two-deep to miss at least one contest.
-- Even if game-day decisions allow quarterback Dan Nicholson, wide receiver Britt Davis and tight end Reed Cunningham to play against Toledo, NIU will have lost a total of 97 man-games to injury.
-- At Thursday's practice, nine players needed crutches to hobble out to Huskie Stadium's east sideline to support their teammates. Seven other Huskies wore yellow jerseys signifying their unavailability due to injury.
"We've run out of yellow jerseys," said head athletic trainer Phil Voorhis, who's in his 19th year at NIU. "This season has been way beyond normal. In one week, we had six surgeries. That's enough for two-and-a-half seasons."
Voorhis and his staff have been so swamped with work this season that they've resorted to humor to keep from weeping.
When asked if the new Yordon Center's spacious state-of-the-art training facilities have been a godsend, Voohis quipped:
"If you build it, they will come. I didn't really want it this way, though."
But seriously.
"We were talking the other day, I couldn't imagine trying to take care of everybody in the west stadium (in the antiquated previous trainers area). We'd have been out in the hallway, on every concession stand up and down the south hallway taking care of them."
Oh, and all those injury statistics above don't quite take this nugget into account: Novak says there are 16 Huskies dealing with a staph infection of varying severity.
To this point, only two players (defensive tackles Zach Holycross and Mike Krause) have missed games due to staph issues.
"If there's a silver lining to this, we've got people looking for it," Voorhis said. "That's not anything different than what we've done every year.
"We're kind of probably the last school in the MAC to get the bug. I guess it's our turn this year."
Northern Illinois (1-7, 0-4) at Toledo (3-5, 1-3)
When: 6 p.m. Saturday at the Glass Bowl. Radio: WCKG 105.9-FM. Series: Toledo 27-7.Coaches: Joe Novak (62-73, 12th year at NIU); Tom Amstutz (53-30, seventh year at Toledo).Players to watch: NIU quarterback Dan Nicholson was knocked out of last week's 44-3 loss at Wisconsin with a concussion, but he practiced Wednesday and Thursday and should be good to go. Tailback Justin Anderson (186 carries, 882 yards, 5 TDs) dropped all the way to 23rd place on the national rushing lists after last week's 14-yard effort.Toledo's senior running back, Jalen Parmele, rushed for a career-high 241 yards last week against Ohio to move into eighth spot on the national list. He's also a huge threat on kickoff returns.The skinny: The MAC West division standings just don't look right with Toledo and Northern Illinois at the bottom. One of these two teams - or both - won four of the last six division titles. The Huskies' injury and turnover problems have been well-chronicled, and the Rockets are guilty of surrendering points early and often. Toledo has allowed at least 34 points in every game and it ranks 118th (out of 119 BCS teams) in scoring defense at 42.9 ppg.- Lindsey Willhite