Carifio: Expecting the unexpected a vast understatement about NIU’s 2024 season

DeKALB – I’m kind of a big fan of my colleague Sean Hammond’s Bear Down, Nerd Up column, where he digs deep into next-level numbers about the Chicago Bears.

So in honor of that, here’s an equation in relation to NIU’s homecoming loss to Toledo on Saturday: 391+92+0=6.

NIU had 391 yards of total offense. They ran 92 total plays. They didn’t turn the ball over. And they scored six points and lost 13-6, falling to 4-3 overall and 1-2 in the Mid-American Conference.

And honestly that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to weird anomalies – statistical or otherwise – that have been the norm for NIU this year. If it is expected, don’t expect it from the Huskies.

You can start with the granddaddy of them all when the Huskies became the first MAC school to beat a top-5 team, knocking off Notre Dame 16-14 last month in South Bend. You can fast forward two weeks when in their next game, the Huskies fell to an unheralded Buffalo team at home in overtime.

They’ve allowed fewer than 200 yards of total offense twice this year. They lost both of those games. They’ve only allowed more than 300 yards once – surrendering 378 to UMass. They won that game by two scores.

They have outgained their opponents in every single game this season. They’ll still probably have a top 10 defense after this week. And they are 4-3 and a long shot to make the MAC title game at this point.

Which brings us to Saturday. The Huskies go a second straight week without a turnover, extra impressive given redshirt freshman Josh Holst was making his first career start and offensive weapons Trayvon Rudolph and Antario Brown were on pitch counts, as coach Thomas Hammock called it.

But the team could not score. Hammock said a big part of that was their 4-for-18 performance on third down and 2-for-8 showing on fourth.

A few of those fourth-down failures were desperation plays late in the fourth. But three times the Huskies faced a fourth-and-1. And for those 391 yards in the game, not a single one came on those short situations.

This was a team that ran for 181 yards Saturday. This is a team that’s 14th in the country in rushing offense. And this was a team that got no yards on three different fourth-and-1 situations.

“If you can’t get a yard in that situation, you don’t deserve to win,” Hammock said. “We didn’t get it, and that is the bottom line. There are some things guys could have done differently as individuals to be successful on those plays. They did not get it done, and we have to live with that. But if I got in that situation again I would do the same thing. I would always bet on our players.”

And he’s absolutely right. If you can’t trust your team to get one yard, what’s going on? Chalk it up to another anomaly, dust yourself off and get back on the horse next week.

And the play calls in those situations, while all runs, were slightly diverse. Brock Lampe’s fullback dive that was stuffed in the first quarter. Grayson Barnes on a tight end sweep in the second that was fumbled and recovered by NIU but short of the first down. And a QB sneak by Holst with 2:56 left in the fourth at the Toledo 41 that was snuffed out by Toledo.

That last one essentially ended the game. NIU still had some chances after, but all after the 2-minute warning and none as good as if the Huskies had made that conversion.

So who knows what else weird will happen in NIU’s final five regular-season games. Maybe they give up 600 yards to Ball State next week, only get 200, but force seven turnovers and win 35-14.

It’s been a weird year, and we’re not even into MACtion yet.

Bear Down. It’s probably not getting any less strange.