Northern Illinois crushes Akron to keep Zips winless on season

After making some defensive stops early, Akron crumbles as Northern Illinois cruises to an easy win at InfoCision Stadium.

Norm Weber / Special to The Plain Dealer

AKRON, Ohio — Although it had to settle for field goals on its first three possessions, Northern Illinois eventually found the touchdown groove to roll to a 50-14 Mid-American Conference win over Akron on Saturday at InfoCision Stadium.

The Zips remain winless at 0-5 while the Huskies move to 3-2 overall.

Akron took the lead midway through the first quarter on a 1-yard run by Alex Allen. The 11-yard scoring drive that made it 7-3 was set up by a special-teams play by Adam Steiner, who recovered a fumble on a mishandled punt-return attempt.

Mike Cklamovski's third field goal of the game, a 43-yard kick with 13:36 left in the half, gave Northern Illinois the lead, 9-7. The Zips would never see any semblance of a lead again.

"Our defensive goal always is to stop a team once it gets into the red zone and give up a maximum of a field goal, which is what we did early," said Akron coach Rob Ianello. "In the early going, we were merely trading back and forth, but then they did all things well and we did not do many things well."

Huskies quarterback Chandler Harnish completed his first eight passes, including one to Shaker Heights native Perez Ashford for a first down on their second scoring drive.

Aided by two major penalties by the Zips defense, Northern drove 93 yards for its first TD, scored by Chad Spann on a short run with 4:32 left in the half that made it 16-7. By the end of the night, Harnish completed 16 of 20 passes for 281 yards.

Northern would score two more TDs before the end of the quarter to take a 29-7 halftime lead. In fact, the Huskies scored on their first eight possessions.

Northern wasted no time getting on the scoreboard, driving down the field quickly and kicking a field goal at 11:52 in the opening quarter. With the Huskies inside the 10, Hasan Hazime turned in a key sack for the Zips.

The Huskies added another short field goal later in the first to make it 7-6.

The Zips finally got on the board again, starting the second half with a big-play drive. Allen sprinted for a 74-yard gain for the longest run of his career before getting dragged down at the 1-yard line. He scored a play later, and carried on all three plays of the drive that made it 29-14.

"I would have liked to have gotten in on the long run, but he just had a good angle on me," said Allen, who finished with 101 yards. "We should be able to get back up for the next game because Kent State is our big rival. If that can't get us up, I don't know what can."

The Huskies would score three more times before the night would end for the Zips.

Zips quarterback Patrick Nicely (Willoughby South) was 14-of-26 for 128 yards and was sacked twice.

"I have to see the films before I can fully determine how well Patrick played," Ianello said. "I do know he did not play poorly. We lacked execution, but that could be attributed to anything including how well Northern played."