Scouting: NIU @ Illinois

Northern Illinois (1-1) at Illinois (1-1)When: 11 a.m. Saturday at Memorial StadiumTV: BTN; Radio: WIND 560-AM, WSCR 670-AMSeries: Illinois leads 3-0Coaches: Jerry Kill (14-14, third year at NIU; 118-71 in 17th year overall); Ron Zook (22-40, sixth year at Illinois; 45-54 overall)NIU players to watch: Northern Illinois' offense performed better with Chandler Harnish back at the controls. With North Dakota's defense stacked to stop RB Chad Spann (220 yards, 1 TD) last week, Harnish rushed 21 times for a career-high 178 yards. LT Trevor Olsen and C Scott Wedige leads NIU's line. Safety Tracy Wilson (23 tackles, 1 INT) will continue to be everywhere.Illini players to watch: RB Mikel Leshoure (218 yards, 2 TDs) will be the fulcrum on offense all year, but QB Nathan Scheelhaase (310 passing yards, 89 rushing yards, 3 total TDs) will be the difference-maker for good or bad in this one. NIU struggled to contain Iowa State dual-threat QB Austen Arnaud. Have the Huskies learned from that? ILBs Ian Thomas (17 tackles) and Martez Wilson (14 tackles) are responsible for reading NIU's rush attack and shutting it down.The skinny: The Huskies get their fourth chance in 19 seasons to pin their first loss on the state's flagship school. Illinois won the meetings in 1992, 1994 and 2001 by a combined 81-36 score. Both sides believe the basics will make the difference, which means Illinois intends to play as as physical as it did the first two weeks while NIU thinks it can match and exceed the Illini's effort. Both defenses will stack the box and force the other to throw. Scheelhaase was poor against Missouri, but fine against Southern Illinois' variety of blitzes and gambles. Harnish was a little rusty against North Dakota, but figures to make that Game 1 to Game 2 leap. His weakness always have been making one or two poor decisions on throws, but he's a junior now and should be past that.He said it: Senior defensive tackle D.J. Pirkle sums up NIU's view: "You'd like to say it's just another game, but a lot of the guys from Illinois were told that we weren't good enough for them. So everyone's going to have a little extra juice coming into this game, definitely."False20001479Northern Illinois running back Chad Spann breaks a tackle by Iowa State linebacker Matt Tau'fo'ou during the second half/Associated PressFalse