DEKALB — Ugliness is in the eye of the beholder, and Northern Illinois coach Rod Carey was grateful to emerge with an ugly 17-14 Mid-American Conference win over heavy underdog Kent State on Saturday afternoon.
“I’ve lost games like that in my career, and you don’t ever, ever slight winning,” Carey said. “Winning is winning, by one or by 50. You don’t get any style points or any asterisks for: ‘Oh, that looked really pretty.’ They don’t do that. So we take that for exactly what it is.”
NIU (4-1, 1-0) extended its home stadium winning streak to a nation-best 28 games by edging a persistent Kent State team (0-5, 0-2) that lost its starting quarterback and backup quarterback to injuries during its final drive that ultimately fizzled on a missed 56-yard field-goal attempt.
Northern Illinois struggled through the first half and led 7-3. Tyler Wedel missed a 39-yard field-goal attempt for NIU’s best scoring opportunity in the first quarter. The Huskies took a 7-0 lead on a 7-yard end-around by Da’Ron Brown in the second quarter.
Kent State drove to the NIU 1 before getting a 19-yard field goal by Anthony Melchiori just before the half.
“The coaches just made great play calls. The defense had to put the fire out, as we say, and that’s what we did,” NIU linebacker Rasheen Lemon said of the first-half goal-line stand.
“It was big because you are talking about a 4-point swing there,” Kent State coach Paul Haynes said about settling for the field goal. “But we got our opportunities in the second half and capitalized on them. You get that close and you like to punch it in for a touchdown.”
Wedel booted a 40-yard field goal to make it 10-3 after Jordan Huff returned the second-half kickoff 66 yards.
Still, Kent State continued to hang around.
“No one ever thought we would even be in this game at all,” Haynes said of his 241/2-point underdog Golden Flashes. “This football team will continue to fight, grind like crazy. It is shaping us for bigger and better things. I love this team’s fight.”
Huff, a freshman from Mobile, Ala., later scored his first career touchdown on an 18-yard run in the third quarter to give NIU a 17-3 lead.
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“I saw the hole close, read my blocks, bounced it outside and was able to get in the end zone,” he said.
Melchiori kicked a 27-yard field goal to pull Kent State within 17-6 at the end of the third quarter.
A 2-yard TD run by Kent State quarterback Colin Reardon (20-for-36, 244 yards) pulled the Golden Flashes within 17-12. Then Reardon connected with Casey Pierce for a two-point conversion to make it 17-14.
Carey alternated quarterbacks Drew Hare and Anthony Maddie, and Maddie threw an interception that gave Kent State a chance to tie or take the lead.
But Reardon appeared to injure an ankle sliding after a run and had to leave the game. Freshman backup quarterback Nathan Strock was drilled for a 5-yard sack and left the game. That brought in third-stringer Jack Williams, who could not move the drive.
“Fourth-and-15, at that time, we felt more comfortable with our field goal kicker than our third- and fourth-string quarterback out there trying to make a play,” Haynes said.
NIU won its 24th straight Mid-American Conference regular-season game and beat Kent State for the eighth straight time.
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