niu007

That's him alright. He looked just like that on Saturday.

Well that's a relief. Not sure it will help though. If you can stop us from running up the middle, well, that's pretty much our entire playbook.

NIU fan here, I come here in peace (and in pieces, after our last game). To be fair, we had a ton of injuries last year including our #1 and #2 QBs and one of our 2 best WRs, and others, so the 3-9 record is somewhat misleading. That said, our O-line was supposed to be good this year but it sucks so far. We look like we're playing in quicksand. We are missing a couple of our best players there but still. Apparently we have zero depth. QB was rushed a lot but not an excuse for 3 INTs against SIU. We'll give Nebraska a run for their money in turnovers (and we rarely force turnovers). We also usually have a good or somewhat good RB, which we seem to be lacking this year. Our QB is mobile but since he's coming off an injury last year he hasn't run much - and he needs to be a threat to run because his passing is inconsistent. Our Defense has been better this year but that bar is so low it's rolling on the floor. We don't get pressure on the QB so he'll probably have all day to throw. We'll have to play way better than we've been to even keep the game close - which I'm hoping we can somehow manage.

I assume the injuries for the Huskers made the line drop a little. I don't know any other reason it would drop like that just now. This one is a real gamble. Could be anywhere from a close win by NIU, very unlikely, to a steamrolling, if our young QB starts throwing interceptions or otherwise plays poorly. Also, we have a RB (Huff) that has averaged about 7 ypc over his career but he splits time with other RBs. If he got 20+ carries we'd have a better shot. Our coach isn't very good at talent evaluation I think, at QB certainly, and probably RB too.

It appears that BC is offensively challenged again, as they often are. Wake Forest beat them 34-10 or something like that. We lost to BC a couple years ago, also by a FG. We moved the ball better in this game but needed a slightly more consistent passing attack and common sense play calling on BC's side of the field. Also, our line didn't block that well on a couple field goal kicks which were blocked (at least one of them could have been kicked with a higher trajectory though, I think). Thus, I'm not entirely sold on our defense just yet. EIU didn't look very good, and as I said, BC won't be near the offensive challenge that Nebraska will be. Sutton Smith appears to be a good, though undersized DE, that has spent a lot of time in the backfield the first 2 games. The secondary is pretty good for a MAC team, but won't do any good unless we can get pressure on the QB. For me the question will be if our QB can continue to improve. He has potential I think.

Yes, Santacaterina. His brother actually played LB at NIU recently. He's a better runner than Graham, breaks more tackles and a little faster. As for passing, hard to say but he hit longer passes regularly against EIU where Graham missed guys that were wide open against BC. It's only one game so it's hard to say for sure but most of the fanbase would prefer Santacaterina and thought that before the season started. All of our QBs are supposed to be dual-threat. Santa isn't particularly fast but decent speed. Of course he had time to throw against EIU without needing a RB or TE to stay in and block like they did against BC.

To be fair, our backup is better than the starter. But that is a low bar, admittedly. The backup has more upside, easily, but might make an extra mistake or two. After the first 2 games my guess is 40-24 Nebraska. I could live with that, and it's close to the spread it looks like. I just don't want another blowout.

Although NIU has plenty of question marks, I think Severson is a little too pessimistic about not getting 5 wins. We play Eastern Illinois, Kent State, Buffalo, Bowling Green, Eastern Michigan and Ball State. Even being pessimistic we should win 4 of those and probably one or two other games on the schedule. We won 2 games last year with Santacaterina at QB and he was #4 on the depth chart. Although I hope Ryan Graham doesn't get the QB spot since we've seen what he can do and it isn't much. If the other guys are worse than him, then I agree with Severson. But I don't think they are - at a minimum they have a much higher ceiling. Not a good year for us to play Nebraska though. If QB Childers or Santacaterina can prove they can pass decently, they are good enough runners to manage our type of offense pretty well at least. Childers did fairly well in the spring game but is a RS freshman - very mobile though. Santa can run, not sure about passing yet. Huff looks like the real deal at RB. For pure running he's much better than the guy he's replacing.