Eastern Michigan, yet again, falls short of putting together a meaningful winning streak. 

Way, way short.

Final score: Northern Illinois 39, Eastern Michigan 10 — another huge stinker at home. Home losses like these simply can’t happen for EMU to have serious success. 

For all of the street credibility NIU came into the game with, this was still a team with a 1-5 record next to its name and was winless against MAC competition. NIU’s season-opening starting quarterback wasn’t even healthy enough to play the whole game, and the quarterback NIU did trot out and didn’t have a very memorable day. 

But the Huskie still won.

Correction: the Huskies still whipped EMU’s behind.

EMU knew what was coming, and NIU brought everything it had. The Huskies lapped EMU 410 yards to 226, and the Huskie defense did everything that the home team wishes it would’ve been able to do.

EMU’s record falls to 4-3 overall, 1-2 in MAC play. Creighton is now 2-7 against NIU all-time.

While EMU’s MAC West hopes aren’t over, the race for its first-ever divisional title only got more difficult. 

EMU’s starting quarterback made just one highlight play against NIU. 

On EMU’s second drive of the game, Powell connected with redshirt-freshman tight end Andreas Paaske for a 75-yard catch and run, which tied the game up at 7-7. 

That’s it. Just the one. 

The pass he had before the touchdown to Paaske was a highlight too, but for the other team. On a screen pass called out of EMU’s own end zone, Powell’s pass was deflected and caught at the line of scrimmage by NIU defensive tackle James Ester for the game’s first score.

Somehow, that play was much less demoralizing for EMU than everything else that the defensive line was able to accomplish.

Six Huskies created 8 total tackles for loss and sacked Powell 5 times for a loss of 49 yards whereas EMU had 5 players create 6 TFL, and Jose Ramirez had the team’s two sacks on the night.

The pressure NIU’s defensive line was one thing, but coverage from the secondary might’ve been better. The NIU DB’s didn’t have an interception and only two recorded pass breakups, but they covered EMU’s receivers long enough for NIU’s defensive line to sometimes complement with a pressure.

Powell was 11-for-23 passing for 197 yards, 1 TD and intercepted once.

NIU QB Rocky Lombardi was finally well enough to return to action for the Huskies, but not well enough to start the game. It was Lombardi’s first game back since Week 3 when NIU played Vanderbilt to a 38-28 home loss. When Northern Illinois found itself in long, passing downs, then Lombardi would see the field. Other than that, it was mostly a day for Justin Lynch and NIU’s running backs to receive snaps for the offense.

That said, it was still a pretty busy day for Lombardi. In fact, if you just read the box score, you probably wouldn’t even know that Lynch made his first career start fot the Huskies (third overall). 

Lombardi was 11 of 15 passing for 115 yards while Lynch was 1 of 1 passing for 8 yards. No touchdowns were scored through the air for NIU (other than the defensive TD by Ester), but NIU’s running backs crossed the goal line three times. NIU’s running backs took a lot of direct snaps in this game with Lynch splitting out at wide receiver, and one of Antario Brown or Harrison Waylee would continually get through the line of scrimmage without being touched.

Brown scored on a 47-yard run to make it a 14-7 game in the first quarter. His second rushing score went for just 6 yards, and Waylee scored on a 76-yard run midway through the fourth quarter.

On NIU’s 12 offensive drives, the Huskie scored seven times.

The other four scores by NIU went to kicker John Richardson, who made all of his field goal tries. 

Not every play EMU ran went for negative yardage, but it sure did feel like it.

EMU didn’t run the ball well at all either. Jaylon Jackson, the starter, had 60 rushing yards (long of 17) on 16 carries. Samson Evans had four rushing yards on four carries, and Darius Boone only had 14 yards on two carries.

Discluding sacks, EMU had 78 rushing yards on 22 carries, an average of 3.5 yards per carry.

For NIU, we’re looking at 300 rushing yards on 47 rush attempts (no sacks included). That’s 6.4 yards per carry.

In short, these victories came in the trenches. The scoreboard reflects that well.