Hey wyonation! Its WeAreHuskies and I also come in peace.
Its easy to look at the Boise game and think that NIU is a terrible team, but its more complicated than that. NIU had a strange 2015, through 2 games we believed that the offense would be electric and the defense would be awful but then at #1 Ohio State, the NIU defense only gave up 1 offensive touchdown and forced Urban Meyer to put in JT Barrett after Cardale Jones after threw 2 picks early on. After that, the defense shined and the offense stunk in a loss at Boston College and everyone was bad in a loss at Central Michigan. The NIU started to shine on both ends down the stretch, and Drew Hare returned to his 2014 self in a string of wins. Then at undefeated Toledo, Hare went down with a season ending injury, but our backup Ryan Graham somehow brought us a win. Graham looked good for a couple more wins until getting injured in a loss vs Ohio. In the MAC Championship, we were lead by Tommy Fiedler (4th stringer) in that loss. Graham came back for the Boise game, but we were overall dinged up and pretty beaten down by the season, and lost in a blowout where Graham played terrible. Hare, a very good QB himself, is back and looks great despite worries that he would miss the start of the season. While a couple of pieces are gone, the offense still has a strong core of running backs lead by Joel Bouagnon and Jordan Huff plus Kenny Golladay (break out reciever, very tall, great hands) The defense returns major weapons, including Shawun Lurry (the leader in interception in all of FBS for 2015) and a couple others. Our coach, Rod Carey, is basically coaching for his job this year after some good regular seasons and bad postseasons and we essentially fired our bad OC Bob Cole but lost our good DC to Rutgers. While knowing some of NIU's tendencies tells me that this will end up being a close game, the 10 point line seems fair. (also, I actually started the topic page for the Big 12 discussion, as a team leaving the AAC could open up a spot for NIU in the AAC, nobody actually believes we could even possibly get a Big 12 spot) I'll be attending the game myself and look forward to it, and hope the best for the Pokes for the rest of the season after game 1! Good luck!