Two-pronged attack by NIU

Jerry Kill had neither the time nor the scholarships to launch the thorough recruiting strategy he will employ in years to come.

As Kill, who was introduced as Northern Illinois' coach Dec. 14, and his assistants debated how to build a 13-man class on the run, they decided to focus on two factors:

• Mining recruiting relationships they developed at Southern Illinois and prior stops.

• Finding young men who can run.

"Here in the Chicagoland area, they commit early," Kill said. "By the time we got the job, pretty much everybody who could play Division I college football had been committed up. That was hard. So we had to find a way.

"We held on to some connections that we had in the past, and we feel like we put together a pretty athletic class. We said we weren't going to take anybody that couldn't run. We need speed."

Northern Illinois found it in such recruits as freshman wideout/kick returner Chase Mejia, a 4.5 speedster from Columbia, Miss., and junior-college linebacker Darnell Bolding.

Mejia and Bolding enrolled in January, so they're going through 6 a.m. workouts now and will be part of spring drills that begin March 24.

When the 6-foot-2, 220-pound Bolding was in his senior year at Bowie (Md.) High School in 2006, he had offers from four Big Ten schools, including Illinois.

But Bolding couldn't accept any of those offers and headed to Coffeyville Community College in Kansas. Kill tapped his long-held roots there to land the young man with 4.53 speed, who'll have three years of eligibility at NIU.

"Coffeyville's been good to us," said Kill, who counts New York Giants running back Brandon Jacobs among his former players who started there. "We needed a linebacker that was athletic and can run."

Kill also mined Kansas' juco ranks for Highland Community cornerback Kiaree Daniels, a Kissimmee, Fla., native who'll have four years to play three seasons for the Huskies.

The rest of NIU's class are freshmen -- and Kill and his staff scoured eight states to find them.

Kill was particularly pleased to earn Tulsa quarterback Brandon Rogers' commitment in the final days.

The 6-2, 210-pound pro-style quarterback led fabled Union High School to Oklahoma's Class 6A title game in the fall. He completed 65 percent of his passes for 2,449 yards, 25 touchdowns and just 5 interceptions.

"At the end of the day, I want to know if they can make great decisions and, in their leadership qualities, can they capture that team?" Kill said. "We've been able to do that with the two guys (Joel Sambursky and Nick Hill) we had at Southern. Sambursky single-handedly helped turn our whole program around with his leadership and charisma.

"(Rogers) has played in front of 25,(000), 30,000 people. He has played the highest level of high school football and he's been under pressure.

"He has those qualities that I mentioned. He wins. Tremendous arm. Makes good decisions. Can come back and win games. You want those guys like (Eli) Manning who find ways to win in the fourth quarter. Not every kid can do that."

Sycamore linebacker Kevin Sabock and Rich East defensive Brian Lawson, who switched from North Dakota State late, represent the only local products to receive scholarships in this class.