No. 23 Northern Illinois enjoys moment, stays focused after beating Notre Dame

DEKALB, Ill. — Northern Illinois had just pulled off the stunner of the season at then-No. 5 Notre Dame two weeks ago and coach Thomas Hammock couldn't hide his feelings.

His voiced cracked, his eyes welled up and the tears rolled down his cheeks. The sheer pride and joy and raw emotion was there on full display in a postgame interview that went viral by about the time he made it from the field to the locker room.

“You never can anticipate that type of moment,” Hammock, a former star running back in his sixth season leading his alma mater, said this week. “But it was the authentic me. And I always tell people you can only be you. Everybody else is taken. That's who I am, that's what I'm about, that's what I believe, and I have a tremendous amount of pride for the people in our program.”

What a moment it is for the program.

The win over the Fighting Irish vaulted the Huskies (2-0) into the AP poll for the first time in 11 years at No. 25. They moved up to 23rd following a bye last week, and will try to build on their big win when they host Buffalo in their MAC opener on Saturday.

“A lot of good things have come from this and we're more than grateful for those things, but we've still got a lot of football left to play,” cornerback JaVaughn Byrd said. “It's still a long season.”

Northern Illinois is no stranger to winning football. The Huskies have consistently been among the top teams in the Mid-American Conference for two decades. They've played in 14 bowl games in that span, and the 2012 team even made the Orange Bowl, with star quarterback Jordan Lynch.

But the victory in South Bend, Ind., was unlike any other for NIU. Kanon Woodill hit a 35-yard field goal with 31 seconds to play, and Cade Haberman blocked a 62-yard try as time expired, preserving a 16-14 win.

The Huskies had never beaten a top-10 team, let alone one ranked in the top five, yet there they were doing it on one of college football's hallowed grounds, in the shadow of Touchdown Jesus. For that matter, it had been nine years since they took out a ranked opponent, when they beat No. 20 Toledo 32-27 on Nov. 3, 2015, and their most recent nonconference win over Top 25 team was against No. 21 Alabama 21 years ago. NIU is now 7-34 against teams ranked in the AP poll after adding to its collection of “Boneyard Wins.”

What's a “Boneyard Win?” The Huskies count “Boneyard Wins” as victories over power conference teams as well as top-tier independents Notre Dame and BYU in 2018. They have 19 since 1983 and have added three bones in the past four seasons.

“Obviously, it's a statement win for any school,” said quarterback Ethan Hampton, who leads the nation in passing efficiency. “I don't think just because we're NIU and we go in there and beat a top-five team it's a statement win because we're NIU. You go to Big Ten teams, power-four teams they're going to be psyched that they went to Notre Dame and beat them on their turf as well. But for us, our expectation is to win — plain and simple.”

Northern Illinois is often overshadowed in a major league market and a state with two Big Ten universities in Illinois and Northwestern. The school of approximately 16,000 sits about 55 miles west of downtown Chicago, in the hometown of model Cindy Crawford. NIU counts comedian Sebastian Maniscalco and actor Dan Castellaneta — the voice of Homer Simpson — among its notable alumni.

But the Huskies are having a moment, just as they did during that Orange Bowl season. Getting to this point hasn't been easy.

Northern Illinois went 0-6 in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season — Hammock's second. A year later, the Huskies won nine games and captured the MAC championship.

They're obviously off to a good start this year with a veteran team. The Huskies have 32 seniors, including 20 who have spent their entire career at Northern Illinois, but keeping the roster largely intact was no sure thing.

Hammock and his staff had to fight off the bigger programs trying to poach players through the transfer portal. And they had to do it knowing NIU couldn't compete when it came to the money.

“I knew how much the players loved this program," Hammock said. “I treated them like men. I said ‘I’m going to support you no matter what you decide to do. But you know we love you guys. We want you here. We've built something special. And I think if you see it through, I think special things will happen for this football team.'”