Maryland went 4-8 last year and is 16-40 in the Big 10 under Mike Locksley so I’m not taking that as a ringing endorsement of NIU.
It looks like 74 of their 271 yards of total offense came on one play. Put it this way, even with the 74 yard TD run they didn’t even average 4 yards per carry.
All of their stats tell me this is a bad offense. They are a run heavy team that hasn’t run it very efficiently, and they only have 200 passing yards for the whole season…. Total, not average. Their QB didn’t even break 100 yards against Maryland.
Now I do think they may be solid defensively, particularly against the run. But they’ve gotten burned on some big pass plays so far, which is not exactly what you want if you are defending Thompson and Evans this week.