Mark Farley (file photo)

Mark Farley (file photo)

The UNI Panthers will be on the road in the second round of the FCS playoffs this weekend when they visit Illinois State. It will be their second meeting of the season after the Panthers beat the Redbirds last month in Cedar Falls.

UNI coach Mark Farley says both teams will do something to tweak their plans to make them different, but at the same time it has only been a month and they are still the same teams. It will be the first time the Panthers have played a team twice in the same season. “It’s probably the biggest question of the day, ‘what do you do when you play somebody for the second time,’…we’ll do some research and put some things on the table,” Farley says.

Farley says like every other game it will come down to execution as he says it doesn’t matter how you scheme, the players have to carry everything out.

The Panthers have won six straight games while Illinois State had a first round bye. Farley says that will come into play as the Redbirds have had two weeks to prepare and some time to rest, but he says the team is playing well right now.

(Reporting by Elwin Huffman, KOEL, Oelwein)