The road has been kind to Northern Illinois over the last few years, so the Huskies are determined to transform Saturday night’s 52-14 blowout loss at Arkansas into a positive.
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NIU had won a national-best 17 straight road games before running into the Razorbacks buzz saw.
“That’s a team that could go on and do some really good things,” Arkansas coach Bret Bielema said of the Huskies after his team improved to 3-1.
NIU (3-1) dropped its first regular-season contest in 27 games, dating to the 2012 season opener against Iowa.
“Arkansas played a great game,” NIU quarterback Drew Hare said. “Obviously there are things we can do to get better than this. And we will. We are going to learn from this.”
In addition to a 25-yard run, Joel Bouagnon was the Huskies’ leading receiver with a career-high five catches for 71 yards and a touchdown. Cameron Stingily rushed 10 times for 49 yards.
But NIU managed just 123 net rushing yards, compared with 212 for Arkansas.
“They did some things in the run game to take us behind the chains and we have got to learn from that, because other defenses will try to do that,” NIU senior right tackle Ryan Brown said.
Northern Illinois beat three Big Ten opponents on the road over the last two seasons — Iowa, Purdue and Northwestern — and had hoped to add a victory against an SEC school to strengthen its resume.
NIU still has a 27-game home stadium winning streak. After playing three of their first four games on the road, the Huskies are off this weekend before playing three straight home games against Mid-American Conference competition.
“(Open dates) are good no matter when you get them,” Carey said. “I don’t know if there is a perfect time for one, but we’ve got one now so we will definitely put it to good use this week.”
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