The story behind NIU coach Thomas Hammock’s emotional reaction after Notre Dame win

After the biggest win of his coaching career, 16-14 at Notre Dame, Northern Illinois coach Thomas Hammock couldn’t help but think about what it took to get to this moment.

All the hours, all the effort, the heartfelt one-on-one conversations to hold together a veteran-laden Northern Illinois team. In a world in which Group of Five programs are often prey to Power Four vultures, Hammock and his coaching staff fought back to keep the roster intact. There was no way to compete with the money, so he focused on the sentimental, telling them he had and would continue to invest everything he had in making them the best versions of themselves. 

As his mind raced back to all those conversations of players coming into his office and telling him bigger programs were interested, Hammock got emotional. The tears flowed in an inedible moment highlighting what makes college football so special, as the choked-up Northern Illinois coach attempted to explain what a win over No. 5 Notre Dame meant in a postgame NBC interview that quickly went viral. 

As it turns out, it meant everything for Hammock and his ascendant program. It validated that the things he and his coaching staff valued — authentic relationships, strong discipline, work ethic and a family culture — paid off on a national stage. 

“A lot of teams came after our guys in December, and guys believed in the program, guys believed in the brotherhood, and they wanted to stay for one another,” Hammock told CBS Sports by telephone on Sunday. “That’s what makes it special … We lost two but two didn’t become 12. That’s why that emotion after the game came over me. These guys stayed, and they believed. They were committed to one another and that’s what, as a coach, you are always looking to build.”

(Hammock was speaking metaphorically; Northern Illinois actually lost 18 players in the transfer portal, per 247Sports, but only two transferred up to Power Four programs). 

Hammock’s vision is how an overlooked team can go into Notre Dame Stadium and not be worried about the 77,622 fans rooting against them. They had never beaten a top-five team before, but the Huskies beat Boston College last season and Georgia Tech in 2021 and weren’t scared of a bigger-name opponent that was paying them $1.4 million to be exactly that. 

Before the game, redshirt junior defensive lineman Skyler Gill-Howard got up in front of the team and referenced NIU’s 2003 win over No. 21 Alabama in Tuscaloosa, a game that defensive line coach Travis Moore was a part of and had referenced to his players more than 20 years later. For more than 20 years, it had been the defining victory for a program that celebrated big upsets with its “Boneyard Victories.” 

“Why can’t that be us?” Gill-Howard implored his teammates. 

Hammock built his entire offseason plan so that it could be. With a bye coming after the Notre Dame game, he pushed his team to go all-out for six weeks (four weeks of fall camp and first two weeks of the season), knowing the Huskies would get a break after what he expected to be a physical game against the Fighting Irish. 

Fresh off a road win over a ranked Texas A&M team, Notre Dame entered the game as a 28.5-point favorite. NIU players likened it to the famous David vs. Goliath parable. 

“No one thinks David is going to win,” kicker Kanon Woodill told CBS Sports. “Not as big and not as strong. No one knows what we’re capable of. Then you see the game, and these guys are sticking in there; this is a brawl.” 

It was almost a disastrous start for Northern Illinois on Saturday. Notre Dame efficiently marched down the field on a 13-play, 75-yard drive to open the game and built a 7-0 lead. On the ensuing kickoff, NIU misplayed the kick, expecting it to be a touchback, only to stop short. Running back Gavin Williams scrambled to grab the ball and advance it to the 2-yard line, narrowly avoiding what could have set up a 14-0 Notre Dame lead in the game’s first seven minutes. Backed up at their own two-yard line, it took NIU only five plays to tie the game on an Ethan Hampton to Antario Brown 83-yard touchdown. 

Hammock told his team pregame they didn’t need luck and that they were good enough to win if they played their best game. He thoroughly believed it, but even the best-laid plans can get blown up quickly on the football field. When he saw how his team responded to falling down 7-0, Hammock knew at that moment his team had a real chance to win. “Game on,” Hammock thought. 

It got even more real for the heavy underdogs when they left the field at halftime up 13-7. It was another moment of validation for a team to see its belief reinforced by what it was experiencing on the field. No one panicked when Notre Dame retook the lead 14-13 midway through the third quarter. Isaac Hatfield, NIU’s long snapper, even gathered kicker Woodill and punter Tom Foley and told them, “This is going to come down to us, and we’re going to execute.”

That moment arrived with 36 seconds left in the game as Woodill readied to take a 35-yard field goal to secure his place in NIU history. Woodill was in his own world on the sideline, excitedly hitting practice kicks to get ready, and thought there were more than two minutes left when he got asked to line up and hit it. With his parents and girlfriend inside Notre Dame Stadium watching and thousands of Irish fans holding their breaths, Woodill drilled it. 

Northern Illinois 16, No. 5 Notre Dame 14. 

“I knew immediately,” Woodill said. “It felt really good coming off the foot, and I just knew it’d be right through the uprights and it was. It was surreal.” 

Notre Dame still had 31 seconds to launch one last comeback effort, eventually settling for a 62-yard Mitch Jeter field goal attempt. After hitting what he expected to be the game-winning field goal, Woodill had no choice but to root against the kicking brotherhood. “I hate wishing for other kickers to miss — I really do ––but in that moment you’re like please don’t let this happen,” he said. NIU teammate Cade Haberman made sure of it, blocking the kick and securing the greatest win in Huskies history. 

“We’re Northern Illinois. People are like ‘Yeah, Notre Dame’s going to win that,'” Woodill said. “But we worked so hard for that and then it paid off. You can work hard and still pull it off, even if it’s top-five Notre Dame.”

As NIU became the new toast of college football, hundreds and hundreds of text messages rolled into Hammock’s cell phone. On Sunday afternoon, he was still working his way through them all, long believing that everyone deserves a response. It’s been a hectic, thrilling 24-hour period for Hammock but it won’t change him. 

“I don’t ever want to think I’m above it,” he says. “Above anybody or any situation. That’s important to me as a man.”

Joe Novak, his old coach, called Sunday and told him, “I guess my win against Alabama slides down to No. 2.” In his office, Hammock looked over at a photo of a jubilant Novak celebrating that Alabama win and feeling like he finally understood what it meant now. He knew what Novak put into the program, building it up from a 0-11 first season to a feisty team that knocked off ranked opponents like Alabama, Maryland and Iowa State. Hammock has had his own trials and tribulations, from an 0-6 covid-19-impacted 2020 season to a 3-9 setback season in 2022 after going to a bowl game the prior year. 

Talent Disparity (247Sports Team Talent Composite)

It all paid off Saturday against Notre Dame. It’s never been harder for a Group of Five program to pull that off. From the transfer portal to the massive NIL advantages the big programs have, the gap between the haves and have-nots on paper has never been greater. And yet there were those beautiful tears streaming down Hammock’s face, a reminder that as much as things change in college football, the brilliance of one moment on a fall Saturday can last a lifetime. 

With his program now ranked No. 25 in the country, Hammock hopes what the world saw in South Bend is just the beginning for Northern Illinois. 

“Hopefully our alumni are proud and excited about the program and want to help enhance our program to stay in the race of college football,” he said. “A lot of things have changed over the years, but the more we can try to build and sustain the better chance we have to be successful.”