No Antario Brown, no problem: NIU ground game surges in 2nd half without star

DeKALB – NIU coach Thomas Hammock said the second half of Saturday’s game against UMass was true Huskie football and an offense he is familiar with.

And NIU did it without the player who has had most of the Huskies’ offense.

Antario Brown went down with an injury in the second quarter, with Gavin Williams and Jaylen Poe taking over the NIU ground attack. And after trailing by six at halftime with 118 yards on the ground, the Huskies pulled out a 34-20 win behind 249 second-half rushing yards.

“We have great ability in this running back room. All guys are great,” Poe said. “I was able to take my opportunity and go out there and perform just as well as he can. We have a great O-line, and we’re a physical team. We’re going to go out there and play punch-mouth football like we did in the second half.”

Williams led the way with 125 yards and a touchdown on 19 carries. Poe had a pair of touchdowns among his 15 carries and 98 yards – plus an 89-yard kickoff return that just missed netting him a third touchdown.

“I’m definitely mad about that. I never should have slowed down,” Poe said of the return he took down to the 4-yard line after the Minutemen pulled to within 27-20 with 3:16 left. “I tried to play nice, play cute but it’s not going to work.”

Quarterback Ethan Hampton had 65 yards on seven carries, most of them designed draws. He also found the end zone once. He threw the ball only nine times and only twice in the second half.

Brown was heading for a big day, with 46 yards on seven carries before he left, contributing to NIU’s 367 ground yards. It’s NIU policy not to update the injury status of players.

At halftime, Hammock said the offensive line told the coaches to let them take over the game. And the staff listened, letting them plow the way for Williams and Poe. After two first-half turnovers – an interception by Hampton and a fumble by Williams – the Huskies didn’t turn the ball over in the second half.

“We stopped ourselves,” Hammock said. “We were running the ball, but we had to clean up the pitches to be consistent and allow these guys to run without any trick-type stuff and just go at them. And that’s what we did in the second half.”

The Huskies also ended up owning time of possession, going from a 16-second edge in the first half to ending the game with an advantage of 7:20.

Down 13-7 at halftime, the Huskies tied it out of the break. UMass drove down and faced a fourth-and-3 at the NIU 25, but the defense held. Then the offense held on to the ball.

The Huskies ran a 13-play, 75-yard touchdown drive that put them ahead 20-13 with 14:12 left in the game, eating up more than seven minutes. Poe capped the drive with a 3-yard run. Both NIU pass attempts came on that drive, including a third-down pickup to Andrew McElroy.

Williams said the team’s Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday practices, the hardest of the week, get the entire roster ready to play.

“[Hammock] jokes about, saying those are his game day,” Williams said. “Just treating those more physical, more intense practices ... as close as we can to game-like reps helps us get different looks and different feels for what they possibly do and help myself and Poe for whatever comes.”

Hammock said there are at least three other backs who could fill in the way Poe and Williams did. Williams and Brown are both seniors, and Poe, who wears Brown’s old No. 28 jersey, is a redshirt freshman.

Williams joined the team in January 2023, transferring from Iowa. He said for a few months when Poe’s freshman class came in, the Huskies had a big-brother, little-brother type mentorship program between the younger and older backs. Poe wasn’t Williams’ brother, but the senior said the program helped freshmen and contributed to Poe’s game Saturday.

“It helps them learn the program, learn the expectations,” Williams said. “It gets them up to speed as fast as we can, so for games like today – even though it’s been a year – if we do call on him he’s not like ‘Oh, goodness. Oh, goodness.’ He’s not anxious, he’s not nervous. He’s calm, cool, collected and goes out there and he performs. It’s an amazing thing to see because everything he does this year is just going to help him excel next year.”