NIU football to play 5 Saturday home games in 2024, including homecoming vs. Toledo

The NIU football team will be home on Saturdays this year. A lot.

The Huskies will play five Saturday home games, including homecoming against rival Toledo, in the schedule released by the school and the Mid-American Conference on Tuesday.

The team starts and finishes the season at home, never plays consecutive home games, and has back-to-back road dates once, separated by 11 days when weeknight MAC games begin.

The Huskies also have a true open week, not playing Sept. 14 after a trip to Notre Dame and the MAC opener against Buffalo. The schedule also features a game at Ball State for the Bronze Stalk Trophy and at Miami for the Mallory Cup.

“I really like the schedule,” said NIU head coach Thomas Hammock, who enters his sixth year at the helm of the program in 2024. “It’s a very balanced schedule. We have no back-to-back road games except when we go to MACtion. We have a true bye week, which is something we haven’t had. We are playing our two trophy games, which is a big deal for our players, and playing five Saturday home games is a tremendous thing for the fans.”

After the MAC opener hosting Buffalo, the Huskies head to North Carolina State to face former NIU coach Dave Doeren. They close nonconference play Oct. 15 against future MAC foe UMass.

MAC play resumes in the refurbished, divisionless league against the other two teams in NIU’s pod, Bowling Green and Toledo. The league split into four three-team pods to rotate opponents and guarantee every school plays a home-and-home series at least every three years.

The two teams with the best records will face off in the MAC title game Dec. 7 at Ford Field in Detroit.

“After we finish the nonconference with N.C. State and UMass, the next two are against teams in our pod, and you are fully into the part of the schedule that becomes very challenging from a MAC standpoint,” Hammock said. “We know the level of toughness, the level of competition and what it takes to win every week in this league.”

NIU will play three midweek MAC games, including a short week with a Nov. 13 game against Akron and a Nov. 19 game at Miami. The Huskies have 11 days off before hosting Central Michigan in the regular-season finale.

The Huskies won their final three games of 2023, including a 21-19 victory over Arkansas State in the Camellia Bowl, NIU’s first bowl win since the 2011 season. NIU returns 18 starters for 2024, including first-team all-conference running back Antario Brown, with spring practices scheduled between March 26 and April 27.