The Daily Chronicle: Not NIU's day

"They just executed," Kill said. "They made the plays. We made those kinds of plays last week, and they made them today."

The Daily Chronicle: Views: Little things hurt Huskies

Saturday, Northern Illinois got to see and feel first-hand how Purdue felt the previous week, postgame head-scratching included.

A road underdog comes in and outplays, in every facet of the game, the home squad that's feeling good about itself. The road team wins the battle in the trenches, converts third downs at a video game-like rate, bottles up the home team's significant run threats, makes a play on special teams and ultimately hangs on for a victory.

The Daily Chronicle: NIU notes: First half ends on a confusing sequence

Injury report: Defensive end Jake Coffman was cleared to play on Friday, but NIU opted to hold him out of Saturday's game. Kill said Coffman would be back next week. Tight end Reed Cunningham was sick with the flu. Center Eddie Adamski injured an ankle in the third quarter. He was replaced by Scott Wedige and Adamski's status for next week is unknown.

The Daily Herald: No letdown, Northern Illinois just outplayed

For anyone who thought Northern Illinois suffered a letdown in a 34-31 loss to Idaho on Saturday a week after upsetting Purdue, Jerry Kill has a word - or seven - for you.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no," Kill said. "Just like I talked to my kids, we put that game behind us Sunday. We practiced hard. You had two good football teams going at it and they out-executed us."

The Chicago Tribune: Idaho topples Northern Illinois 34-31

The 1,000th football game in Northern Illinois University history should have been an otherwise forgettable exercise for the Huskies.

Instead Idaho, a 16 1/2 -point underdog, upset Northern Illinois 34-31 Saturday before a crowd of 16,320 at Huskie Stadium.

The Chicago Sun-Times: NIU follows Purdue win with 34-31 loss to Idaho

''No excuses -- they out-executed our football team,'' Kill said. ''Physically, they took it to us. They blocked better. It comes down to blocking and tackling. We didn't tackle very well.''