Foul Balls College Football Preview - Northern Illinois Huskies
With the college football season just round the corner, Foul Balls has decided it's about time we busted out our college football previews. Today we'll be finishing up our seperate team interviews with the Northern Illinois Huskies.
2006 Record - 7-6, 5-3 3rd MAC West
2007 Projection - 5-7
Most Important Player - For the last two seasons Dan Nicholson has had to fight for Northern's starting quarterback job. This year it's already his, but that doesn't mean he doesn't need to improve. The Huskies lost two of the better players in school history to the NFL in Garrett Wolfe (now with the Bears) and left tackle Doug Free. That's a lot of production to make up for, and Nicholson is going to have to do his part. Nicholson's style may sound familiar to Chicagoans. He has a cannon for an arm, and a gunslinger's mentality, which tends to lead to a lot of bad decisions. Without Garrett Wolfe to depend on, Nicholson is going to have to learn to take better care of the football.
Who to watch on offense - So how exactly do you replace a guy who was responsible for over 5,000 yards rushing in his career? You don't. What you do is you hope a group of running backs can make up some of that production, and that's what we'll be seeing in DeKalb this season. Montell Clanton, Justin Anderson, Cas Prime (cousin of Optimus), and David Bryant will all be carrying the ball for the Huskies at some point this season. The good news is that while there are no standouts at the receiver position, there's a lot of depth for the Huskies to help take the load off the ground game. With Britt Davis and Marcus Perez the Huskies get their top two receivers from last season back, but they'll have to step up their production this season. The offensive line will have to replace two starters, but with Eddie Amanski anchoring things at center, the line should be fine.
Who to watch on defense - It will probably be hard to keep your eyes off of Larry English. After recording only one sack his freshman season, English exploded last season. In 13 games he finished with 12 sacks to tie the school record, and finish 10th in the nation. He also had 16 tackles for loss and forced four fumbles. At linebacker, the Huskies feature Tim McCarthy who followed up an All-American freshman season with 111 tackles last season. He also had a couple of interceptions, a sack, a fumble recovery, and broke up 5 passes in case anybody wanted to say he wasn't well-rounded. The secondary was the weakness last season (NIU finished second in the MAC against the run, but 11th against the pass and 107th nationally.) but it may be a strength this season. Melvin Rice and Bradley Pruitt return to start at corner, and now they've got a whole years worth of game tapes showing them what not to do. Hopefully, they'll learn from them and improve this season.
Possible Upset - 11/24 vs. Ball State. It's not so crazy to imagine a MAC team upsetting a Big Ten team early this season, and the Huskies have done it a few times before, but I don't think Northern is going to be able to open their season with a win at Iowa. That leaves the final game of the season against Ball State. Odds are Ball State will be playing for a berth in the MAC title game, and I'm sure the Huskies wouldn't mind denying them that goal.
Coaching - It's Pat Novak's 12th season in DeKalb, and he's still looking for that first conference championship. It's the only thing he has left to accomplish with the Huskies, which he's turned into the MAC's most successful program in the last ten years. The Huskies are the only MAC team to finish with a winning record the last seven years, and even with so many questions, Novak will have this team prepared to compete in the conference.
Conference and Bowl Expectations - There's a very real possibility that NIU's streak of seven straight winning seasons is going to end this year. The MAC West is deeper than ever this season with Western Michigan, Ball State, Toledo, and Central Michigan all viable contenders to win the division. I just don't think the Huskies are going to get the job done this season, but at the same time, I don't think they'll be down long. Consider this season to be a detour.
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