Welcome to the Daily Chronicle's NIU Sports newsletter. Kaleb Carter (@Kaleb_M_Carter on Twitter) will provide exclusive content from what he's been reporting, seeing and hearing on the NIU athletics beat.

Marcus Kelly is incredibly happy just to be on the field with teammates.

“I just want to play football, man," Kelly said. "After missing all of spring, it’s just good to be back out there.”

Kelly had nagging shoulder troubles that he had addressed.

“It had to be done," Kelly said. "I’m glad it’s done now so I can be healthy again and enjoy my last year with more issues.”

The redshirt senior doesn't know where he'll take the majority of snaps, as he's been used at defensive tackle and more recently, at defensive end. A year ago, Kelly played in 14 games and made 15 tackles.

“It doesn’t matter where. If coach puts me at safety, I’m going to get torched every play, but at least I’m playing," Kelly said. "I just want to play somewhere, it doesn’t matter where.”

A difference in the coaching personnel has yielded different roles for the defensive line coaches. This season, Jordan Gigli coaches the defensive tackles while Travis Moore coaches the defensive ends.

In Kelly's prior years with the program, there was a defensive line coach.

“We’re not together all the time, that took some time getting used to, but at the end of the day, we're one unit," Kelly said.

While Kelly may not be part of the group, yet, cornerbacks coach Aaron Wilkins addressed the play of some cornerbacks after practice Thursday.

The first-year cornerbacks coach compared freshman Mark Aitken and Jalen McKie in their growth allowing their natural instincts to come into play on the field.

"Very instinctual players, really really good ball skills," Wilkins said. Both played receiver in high school. Jalen came here as a receiver. Naturally when the ball’s in the air, they know what to do with it. We’ve just got to get them in the right spots.”

Wilkins hears a consistent refrain from many coaches about one-on-one man coverage from conrnerbacks, but he instructs things somewhat differently.

“I think for us in the secondary, we always talk about we’re on top and in control, we can play the ball," Wilkins said. When we’re underneath… we’re not an interception defense, when we’re underneath because we play a lot of man-to-man coverage. In a sense I think we’re just developing that mindset, and again, like I tell them, you’ve got to have a mentality that there’s not one ball thrown in the air that’s not intended for me. It’s a lot different as opposed to just ‘don’t get beat deep.’ A lot of DB coaches say that. Get on top, control the route, then we develop the mindset, ‘that ball is thrown to me.’”

Wilkins hears a consistent refrain from many coaches about one-on-one man coverage from cornerbacks, but he instructs things somewhat differently.

McKie is focused most on more consistently employing his techniques and having the right mindset when he gets on the field.

"You’ve just got to always go out there and have a dog mentality that you’re the best player out there and that nobody can catch a ball on you," McKie said. "You’ve just got to have a positive mindset out there no matter how old you are, freshman or sophomore, junior, senior, we just want to get everybody prepared because we’ve got a lot of freshmen that’ll play this year.”