More Kill reaction on Thursday scrimmage

Northern Illinois coach Jerry Kill always says it's unfair to judge his team's performances in practices and intra-squad scrimmages until he watches film.

Well, a day after Thursday's scrimmage - Kill tore into his players after Thursday's session for a lack of urgency - Kill had a more thorough evaluation. His conclusion: the Huskies were "a tired football team."

"I think they’re tired, and we didn’t play as fast certainly as we’d like to," Kill said. "I think you reach a point in camp where they’ve given everything they got, and I think they’ve given us everything they’ve got. There’s a lot of good things on film on both sides of the ball. Some players showed up and did some things. Overall, we got what we wanted out of the scrimmage."

The Huskies had two lighter practices on Friday with the morning session focusing on special teams. The players donned shoulder pads, helmets and short during the afternoon and ran "shell" drills with no more than hand contact between the offense and defense.

NIU's last practice of training camp will be Saturday at 8:15 a.m. with the team going through a non-contact walk-through. The Huskies have Sunday and Monday off before returning to Huskie Stadium on Tuesday afternoon.

"Now, we go through situations and try to get some guys heeled up and get ready for tomorrow, a mental practice tomorrow and come back on Tuesday and start doing some things to prepare for Iowa State a little bit and correct some mistakes maybe that need to be corrected," Kill said.

NIU made it through training camp without incurring any significant injuries. Kill said senior cornerback Patrick George (sprained ankle) and junior offensive tackle Adam Kiel, who both sat out most of training camp, are expected to practice next week.

- Jeremy Werner