Getting to know the Huskies
Fresh off a fresh butt-whipping at the hands of Clemson, NC State will welcome Northern Illinois to town. Dave Doeren’s former employer has already taken down Notre Dame this year, so the Huskies are plenty capable of pulling the upset in Raleigh. Let’s get to know them.
Northern Illinois
Strengths
The Huskies use a ground-based, ball-control style on offense that allows them to dominate time of possession. NIU runs the ball 58% of the time (32nd in FBS) while ranking 7th in averaging over 34 minutes of possession time per game. NC State checks in at 10th in the nation in average time of possession, but that’s due to a defense getting gashed for quick scores by opponents while having an offense that struggles to generate quick scores of their own.
Speaking of that NIU offense, the line is a real strength ranking 10th in the nation in Stuff Rate and 20th in Line Yards per Rush. Being able to move the defense on run plays and hold up against the pass rush puts pressure on the defense to bring in guys from the secondary to stop the run and bring pressure. That puts the WRs in a lot of one-on-one man situations. While the passing game isn’t built to be super efficient, they have been able to take advantage of those man coverage situations, ranking 14th nationally in Passing Plays Explosiveness.
The defense meanwhile has been very good at creating big plays, ranking 24th in Havoc rate (generating a TFL, PBU, or turnover).
Weaknesses
NIU’s run defense isn’t the strongest, ranking 112th in both Power Success Rate and Stuff Rate. They have also been susceptible to the big play on the ground, ranking 123rd in Rushing Plays Explosiveness.
The offense has its strengths, but is still a relatively pedestrian unit.
Opportunities
Well, obviously there’s an opportunity to turn out some chunk plays on the ground if the Wolfpack can get that part of their game moving. That hasn’t been something State’s been able to do this year, ranking 105th in Line Yards and 114th in Rushing Play Success Rate. The mobility of C.J. Bailey at least will limit NIU’s ability to key on just the running backs, giving State an opportunity to spread out the defense a bit and look for those big plays.
Bailey will be making the second start of his young career and the environment in Raleigh will be much more hospitable than it was in Clemson. The Huskies defense is solid, no question, but also will be step down from the Tigers.
Trivia
Forget threats, let’s go with some trivia (trivial?) facts.
- The Mountain West Conference is apparently interested in adding Northern Illinois (along with Toledo) in the wake of losing four schools (Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State) to the Pac
12 and another (Air Force) to the AAC. Not sure that’s the best move for them, but gotta do what you gotta do, I guess. - NIU has been playing at the highest level of college football since 1968. Dave Doeren has the highest winning percentage (.852) of any non-interim head coach (Tom Matukewicz won his one game as the interim head coach in 2010). Doeren also led the Huskies to their only final Top 25 finish in school history, ranking 22nd in the final AP poll in 2012.
- Huskies head coach Thomas Hammock and NC State head coach Dave Doeren have similar coaching histories having each coached at Wisconsin and Northern Illinois, but their paths never actually crossed.