Northern Illinois Coach Thomas Hammock Is Rooting For Notre Dame In CFP Championship

On Thursday night, Northern Illinois football coach Thomas Hammock was in Orlando, Fla., to support two players who are competing in Saturday’s Hula Bowl, a postseason game for NFL draft prospects. Still, Hammock watched the College Football Playoff semifinal that took place about 220 miles south in Miami Gardens.

Hammock usually doesn’t care who wins games not involving his team. But he was happy on Thursday when Notre Dame kicker Mitch Jeter made a 41-yard field goal with seven seconds remaining, clinching the Irish’s 27-24 victory over Penn State and securing a spot in the national title game on Jan. 20.

Four months ago, Northern Illinois’s Cade Haberman blocked Jeter’s 62-yard attempt as time expired, giving the Huskies an improbable 16-14 victory over Notre Dame, which was favored by four touchdowns. Since then, the Fighting Irish (14-1) have won 13 consecutive games, the longest streak in the Football Bowl Subdivision, while Northern Illinois continues to be mentioned as the only team to defeat Notre Dame this season.

“It definitely comes up a lot more outside of our building,” Hammock said in a telephone interview on Friday. “You get in the season and you play the game and you then move on to the next one, but I’m certainly excited about what Notre Dame has been able to do. Hopefully they can finish it off on January 20th.”

Hammock said NIU hung with the Irish because of its offensive and defensive lines and because it had no turnovers while intercepting Notre Dame quarterback Riley Leonard twice. The second pick came with 5:55 left and gave Northern Illinois the ball at the 50-yard line. Eleven plays later, Kanon Woodill connected on a 35-yard game-winning field goal. It was NIU’s first victory over a top-10 team and first win over a ranked team in 21 years.

“I told them all week, ‘We don’t need luck. We’ve just got to be our best,’” an emotional Hammock told NBC’s Zora Stephenson in a postgame interview. “They were their best today, and we were able to get it done.”

After the Notre Dame game, NIU lost two in a row and four of its next six. But the Huskies rebounded to win four of their last five games, including a 28-20 victory over Fresno State in the Potato Bowl two days before Christmas. NIU finished 8-5, the third time in the past four years they were above .500.

Over the past couple of months, as Hammock and his staff have recruited via the high school ranks and transfer portal, they have pointed to the Notre Dame game. Players have responded in kind, saying they heard about NIU thanks to that win.

“It helps us tremendously, just showing what we are capable of doing on a big stage, Hammock said. “I think that that makes a lot of young men excited about the opportunity to potentially come here, and now with the transfer portal and other ways that you can improve your roster, we have a great opportunity here to continue to get better and build for the future.”

This week, NIU announced it will be joining the Mountain West Conference for football-only starting in 2026. It is a major step up for the Huskies, who have played in the Mid-American Conference since 1997.

“That’s a huge positive for our program,” Hammock said. “I think the Mountain West obviously puts a big investment into football, and we wanted to be a part of that.”

As the season progressed and Notre Dame continued to win, Hammock couldn’t help but be aware of the streak. The Irish won their final 10 regular season games by an average of more than 30 points per game, but the loss to NIU lingered to some who questioned if Notre Dame was really among the nation’s best or benefited from a weak schedule. During the CFP, the No. 7 seed Irish have responded with consecutive victories over No. 10 seed Indiana, No. 2 seed Georgia and No. 6 seed Penn State.

“I really can say it’s a blessing that we lost to (NIU),” Notre Dame cornerback Christian Gray told ESPN’s Molly McGrath after Thursday’s game. “It got us humbled and everything. But you see we’re up here right now because of that L.”

Said Hammock: “Normally, you are objective. But in this particular case, I certainly want to see Notre Dame have as much success as they want…They’ve gotten better as the season has went along. I think that speaks volumes to coach (Marcus) Freeman and to the leadership and to the players in that program of how they’ve been able to block out the noise, limit the distractions and play their best football each and every single week.”

On Jan. 20, Notre Dame plays one more game, facing No. 8 seed Ohio State (13-2) for the CFP championship in Atlanta. Hammond plans on remaining in Illinois instead of traveling for the game because he wants to be at NIU to help the high school players and transfers who joined the Huskies this semester. Still, he’ll be watching on television with keen interest.

“I’m certainly rooting for Notre Dame,” Hammock said. “I’m a Marcus Freeman fan. I love his humility, his leadership, everything that he’s done since I met him during that game. I wish him nothing but the best.”