Northern Illinois University head coach Thomas Hammock put the Huskies through a two-hour practice in full pads Saturday at Huskie Stadium in the final extended scrimmage of preseason camp. Saturday’s scrimmage focused on situations with 11-on-11 periods starting from various locations on the field including inside the five-yard line, and in the red zone as well as two-minute.

“For us, today was more about trying to get some different situations,” Hammock said. “We did some with the offense backed up, we did some red zone and a little bit of move the ball, which we do a lot of every day in practice. We worked end of game situation from a two-minute standpoint.”

The offense and defense each had its moments during the workout, which also featured officials, including an interception by Ty Myles, a touchdown pass from Jalen Macon to Grayson Barnes in the red zone period with transfer tight end Jake Appleget also making a touchdown grab.

Developing a well-balanced, unpredictable offense using the Huskies’ playmakers throughout the line-up has been an emphasis of camp, Hammock said, knowing that NIU has a reputation as a strong running team.

“Offensively, there’s been an emphasis on getting the ball to the playmakers and allowing those guys to make plays,” Hammock said. “We’re doing a lot of different things, getting the personnel packages set and getting different people involved, making it very unpredictable.

“We obviously know we’ll have the ability to run the football, but if somebody wants to pack the box, what are our answers? So we’ve been working on answers to the problem before we see them. Overall, I like where those guys are.”

On defense, the Huskies are looking to build on the success of 2023 which ranked in the Top 25 nationally, including sixth in pass defense.  NIU held opponents to 319.5 yards and 21.0 point per game, the lowest averages since 2008 and 2012, respectively.

“Defensively, those guys are playing at a high level,” Hammock said. “We probably have 19 guys we feel like are starters on defense. So not only do we have depth, we have quality depth across the board of guys that can go out there and make big contributions to us playing great defense.

“I really like where we are on both sides of the ball and on special teams,” Hammock continued. “We’ll start making some decisions here and coming to some resolutions at different positions. We feel like we have a deep team, a bunch of guys that can contribute. As coaches, we have to be able to identify the guys that can help us in games to win games. We need to start refining what their roles are and how they can execute.”

NIU has six practices remaining until fall semester classes begin. After Sunday’s annual “mock game” which includes going through the gameday scenario from pregame warm up to sideline locations to every special teams unit, the Huskies will practice twice next week before beginning Western Illinois prep.

“We have two practices next week that will focus on things we want to get better at, things we may need to take a look at that are going to happen during the season,” Hammock said. “There are situational things that are not normal, but we want to be prepared from that standpoint.

“On Friday we start Western Illinois prep. We have a great opportunity Friday, Saturday and Sunday to get the whole game plan in, and then fine tune it game week.”

NIU season, single game and mini-plan tickets are on sale now. Check out all of the ticket options and buy tickets anytime online at NIUHuskies.com/myhuskies. To request more information and connect with a member of the NIU ticket staff, call the NIU Athletics Ticket Office at 815-753-PACK (7225). Calls received outside of business hours (Monday-Friday, 9 am-5 pm CT) will be returned the next business day.