Mistakes cost Dawgs in 42-21 loss at UNI

Saturday, October 1

Cedar Falls, Iowa

4:00 PM

Southern Illinois University

2-2 , 0-1

Northern Iowa

2-2 , 1-0

Team	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Final F
Southern Illinois	0	14	7	0	21
UNI	14	21	0	7	42

10/01/2016 | 8:22:00 | Football

Box Score

By: By John Lock, SIUSalukis.com

CEDAR FALLS, Iowa – The Southern Illinois football team lost its conference opener, 42-21, at No. 12-ranked Northern Iowa on Saturday afternoon in the UNI-Dome. Southern Illinois gave UNI short fields on four of its five first-half scores.

"Against really good players like that, you can be good for 25 out of 30 snaps. It's the five snaps you're not disciplined that they will make you pay," SIU head coach Nick Hill said.

The Panthers (2-2, 1-0 MVFC) took advantage of nearly every SIU mistake. On UNI's first drive, Southern (2-2, 0-1 MVFC) got a stop but was called for roughing the kicker on Northern Iowa's punt. UNI scored to go ahead 7-0. On the first play of SIU's ensuing drive, the Dawgs fumbled it back to UNI, who quickly took advantage for a 14-0 lead.

Southern and UNI traded a couple touchdowns late in the second quarter, with one of the Panthers' scores coming after a 16-yard punt handed them a short field. Trailing 28-14 with less than a minute left in the half, SIU tried to get a quick score before half. Quarterback Josh Straughan threw his first interception of the season, and UNI's Malcolm Washington returned it 43 yards for a UNI touchdown and a 35-14 Panther halftime lead.

At halftime, the Panthers had only a 10-yard advantage in total offense but a 21-point advantage on the scoreboard. Both offenses slowed down in the second half, and UNI recorded its third-straight win in the series between the programs.

"When you're behind like that playing catch-up, you're not really running the football," Hill said. "They're able to play soft and make you check the football down, make you kill the clock. They've been doing that for a long time here."

Straughan threw for 307 yards and three touchdowns in the loss, his second 300-yard game of the season. Darrell James had 117 yards on five receptions, including a 48-yarder on the opening play of the game. Defensively, Deondre Barnett had a team-high eight tackles and yet another strip sack, his third of the season.

SIU hosts South Dakota State next Saturday at Saluki Stadium. The game is set to kickoff at 6 p.m. CT.

"The best thing about football is that you have all week with that bad taste in your mouth, but then you get another chance to ultimately get it out of your mouth," Hill said.

ADDITIONAL QUOTES FROM COACH HILL

On the end of the first half: "That was a sequence of plays that we were never able to come back from. I don't think we would do anything over in terms of calling a pass play. We knew what defense we were going to get, and we got it. We just didn't execute."

"They did a lot of things better than we did tonight. We need to do a lot of things better in this league to go on the road and play teams like this. We'll get better from it. We just have to learn from it because, bottom line, the next seven or eight weeks, we'll be playing the same caliber of team."

"Turnovers, special teams, penalties, all those little things that you have to do to win on the road, when you look back on it, they beat us in all of those categories."

NOTES

Straughan's interception in the second quarter snapped a streak of 136 consecutive pass attempts without an interception to start his SIU career...SIU entered the game ranked seventh nationally in tackles for loss per game (9.0) and recorded nine more tackles for loss...Deondre Barnett recorded his third forced fumble of the season, already tied for fourth in SIU single-season history and one away from the most for any SIU player since 2005...Darrell James had 117 receiving yards, two off his career high of 119 last year vs. Indiana State...James and Israel Lamprakes both surpassed 500 career receiving yards, giving SIU give players with 500 caree receiving yards.