BYU Football: Scouting the Schedule

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DETROIT, MI – DECEMBER 26: Tre Harbison #22 of the Northern Illinois Huskies celebrates his first half touchdown with teammates while playing the Duke Blue Devils during the Quick Lane Bowl at Ford Field on December 26, 2017 in Detroit Michigan. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images) /

Special Teams

Christian Hagan was inconsistent as the field goal kicker in 2017, but he’s graduated. Andrew Gantz (Sr.) will take over that position after transferring from Cincinnati. He made 78% of his kicks as a Bearcat, so he’ll likely prove to be an upgrade over Hagan.

Matt Ference (So.) is back at punter. He averaged 41.2 yards per punt last season, good for 68th in the country. He’ll look to improve in 2018, going from average to a true field-position weapon.

Outlook

Last year’s Northern Illinois squad featured an average offense and a stout defense. This year the script could be flipped. With most of the offense back, look to see improvement. The scoring success, though, will come down to how much quarterback Marcus Childers improves.

On defense, there’s plenty of talent among the starters but not much depth. Sutton Smith can single-handedly wreak havoc on an offense, but the lack of experience on that side of the ball could become a problem as the season progresses.

The 2018 Huskies should be better than their 2017 iteration, but that doesn’t mean they’ll win more games. Their non-conference schedule consists of Florida State, Iowa, Utah, and BYU, so they’ll have to pull of at least one upset and run the MAC table to finish with a better record.

And that is a very real possibility.