Rob Harley sent the punt team onto the field on fourth-and-2 from the NIU 48 with 7:02 left in the second quarter in Tucson, with his team ahead 10-0. Arizona scored on the drive that followed, NIU's next possession lasted four plays, and Caleb Smith took the ensuing punt back 69 yards for a touchdown that made it 28-10 at halftime. Harley has not publicly explained the call, and no reporting ties the collapse to it. NIU never led again, and the 42-17 loss dropped the Huskies to 0-3.
What happened before that punt is worth holding onto. Jack Murray sacked Noah Fifita on Arizona's opening snap, at the Arizona 14. Telly Johnson Jr. gained 39 yards on three carries on NIU's first drive, which ended in a field goal. Two minutes later Taron Dickens hit Cam Thompson for 52 yards on the first play of a drive that started at the NIU 48, and NIU led 10-0 less than six minutes in, its first first-quarter points of the season, after being outscored 34-0 in first quarters through two games. The front seven finished with four sacks and seven tackles for loss and held Arizona to 83 net rushing yards on 26 carries. For a unit that had to replace Quinn Urwiler, whose 141 tackles last year were the most by a Huskie since 1992, that is not a broken defense.
Then Arizona scored 42 unanswered points. Fifita went 31-of-34 for 325 yards and four touchdown passes with no interception, and Arizona scored five offensive touchdowns while averaging 7.1 yards per play. Murray's own diagnosis was third down. NIU had to "execute better on third down in the critical situations." The sacks were real, but the coverage still gave everything away, the second straight game a quarterback has picked the Huskies apart through the air.
The offense went quiet just as thoroughly. DeAree Rogers caught 10 passes for 68 yards, and said film study told NIU that Arizona would play man coverage most of the game, which the Huskies took as "a sign of disrespect." Past the 52-yarder to Thompson, the disrespect went unpunished. NIU missed a 41-yard field goal, had a Rogers touchdown erased by an ineligible-receiver penalty on a lineman who drifted downfield, and gave up a sack for a 10-yard loss on fourth-and-goal from the 10 with 42 seconds left in the third quarter. Six of 16 on third down. Johnson's 24-carry, 86-yard team rushing afternoon (he had 69 of those yards, 39 on that opening drive) says the same thing the passing game does. NIU can produce one good drive, not four.
Harley's read afterward was not about scheme. "We thought we got out to a fast start, and then it goes back to the discipline to execute and the self pride, and we got to coach them, and it's an all on us thing." Take him at his word, and this week is about whether that message shows up in the second and third quarters.
The game
Saturday at Georgia State, 2 p.m. ET on ESPN+. The two programs have never played before, so there is no history to lean on and nothing about the building NIU has seen. FanDuel has Georgia State favored by 10.5 with a 55.5-point total. The simulation gives NIU a 34% chance.
Here is why it deserves more attention than a 34% road game usually gets. Georgia State ranks 92nd nationally in rush defense at 153.3 yards allowed per game, and 78th in scoring defense. That is by far the softest front Johnson has run at, and it arrives in the week when NIU's problem is drives rather than yards, ranking 118th in third-down conversion and 137th in red-zone scoring. Georgia State's third-down defense, though, ranks 18th, and the Panthers rank fifth nationally in time of possession while scoring 40 points a game. If NIU's run game carries only the opening series again, Georgia State's offense keeps getting the ball back rested, and the afternoon will look familiar fast.
So watch the second quarter. Watch whether Johnson is still getting five-yard carries after the opening script runs out, whether Dickens throws anything past 15 yards against a secondary that is not Big 12 caliber, and whether Harley goes for it the next time his team is near midfield with a lead. A win here would be Harley's first, and it would land one game before the bye and the Oct. 10 Homecoming opener against Air Force, NIU's debut in the Mountain West it joined as a football member in July. Three nonconference games have told fans nothing about how the Huskies will handle their new league. A team that closes out a drive-for-drive game in Atlanta would at least walk into that debut having done something.
Full breakdown at the interactive guide; the model is explained at methodology.