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| Northern Illinois linebacker Devon Butler (left) runs at practice at Huskie Stadium. (Rob Winner – rwinner@daily-chronicle.com) |
DeKALB – It’s the final days of training camp for the Northern Illinois football players as Thursday’s scrimmage marked the 17th practice session in 15 days, and the sun and sweat seem to have taken a toll on the Huskies.
NIU’s third scrimmage wasn’t as crisp as last Saturday’s exhibition with many of the players lacking the enthusiasm and urgency NIU coach Jerry Kill demands.
The thousands of NIU students moving into the university resident halls and apartment buildings surrounding Huskie Stadium on Thursday served as another distraction for some football players who see a two-and-a-half-week, grueling camp coming to an end.
Kill obviously wasn’t pleased with his team’s efforts judging by his after-practice talk with his team.
“We’ll see how we react on Friday and Saturday,” said Kill, referring to the final practices of camp. “We have a lot of people that want camp over on Thursday. Camp’s not over ’til Saturday and they don’t start school ’til Monday. In the past, kids have kind of cashed in on Thursday because everybody’s on campus, but I’m not going to let them do a whole lot of anything except worry about their football game.”
Like the two previous scrimmages, Kill worked his team through various game situations, including goal-line setups, two-minute drills, four-minute drills (wind down the clock) and last-second plays to set up field-goal attempts.
The offense scored on a 70-yard opening drive. Chad Spann capped it off with a three-yard touchdown run after junior quarterback DeMarcus Grady went 5-for-8 for 55 yards. But the defense kept the offense out of the end zone for the next five drives.
Kill wanted to see more energy from his offense – and leadership from the veterans – after its initial scoring drive.
“I think a lot of the guys are just trying to get through (the end of camp), not trying to get better,” said senior fullback Kyle Skarb. “We’ve got a decently young team, and we have to get them to the level the seniors are at.”
Kill said he’s curious to see how the 29 true freshmen on the training-camp roster respond to the added rigors of school, which starts next week.
“It’s easy to come play pro football for two weeks, but then you got school and everything else that goes with it,” Kill said. “That’s when we know whether freshmen can play or not”
Some of the Huskies veterans understand Kill is just trying to prove a point. Practice doesn’t end after training camp. They’ll be just as tired and even more banged up in a few weeks.
“You’re fighting yourself,” senior linebacker Alex Kube said, “because one part of you is telling you to stop, one part is telling you, ‘Nope, I can keep going.’ I think that’s the goal of the coaches. They want us to feel the way we feel right now because come week 12 when we’re playing Eastern Michigan, that’s how you’re going to feel.”
