Northern Illinois, just two years removed from winning the MAC Championship, went into South Bend, Indiana, and upset fifth-ranked Notre Dame 16-14 on Saturday. The victory dropped Notre Dame 18th in the Associated Press Poll.
The Huskies jumped in at #25, and are #30 in the Coaches Poll. They are the only “Group of Five” school to be in the Top 25 for the AP, while Memphis is at #25 in the Coaches Poll.
With a bye this week, Northern Illinois is likely to fall out of the rankings by default, but will face the Buffalo Bulls in their return to play on September 21. The victory over the Fighting Irish was the first win over a top-5 school in Northern Illinois program history. For Notre Dame, this was another disappointing loss early in the season where National Championship aspirations hit a major snag. A season ago, head coach Marcus Freeman forgot how to count, sending just 10 players onto the field for the game-losing touchdown against Ohio State with under a minute remaining in the contest.
While the success of the Huskies should not come as a surprise to anyone, having been picked in the preseason by Athlon Sports to finish third in the MAC, the win in one of the more hostile and history stadiums in the country certainly should be. This century, Northern Illinois joined Tennessee, Georgia, and Oklahoma as the only four schools since 2000 to win on the road in both Notre Dame Stadium and Bryant-Denny Stadium, and the only non-Power Four (then-Power Five) school to do so.
The Fighting Irish paid $1.4 million to Northern Illinois to come in, nearly double the $800,000 that Michigan paid Appalachian State in 2011 for the largest regular season upset in college football history.
Thomas Hammock has been the head coach in Dekalb, Illinois since 2019, having been a NIU running back from 1999-2002. After spending the previous five years as the running back coach for the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens, Hammock has compiled a 26-33 record in his five seasons. The Huskies were 7-6 in 2023, with the final victory coming in the Camellia Bowl against Arkansas State. The irony is not lost on the Huskie football team, as their last bowl victory prior to last December came in the 2011 GoDaddy.com Bowl…also to Arkansas State.
The Huskies came up short in the Cure Bowl to Coastal Carolina in their 2021 MAC Championship year, where Hammock won the conference Coach of the Year honors.
Northern Illinois has one final test before MAC conference play opens, and that is a September 28 against North Carolina State, who themselves dropped out of the Top 25. That can happen when you lose 51-10 to Tennessee on your home field.
While the win over the Irish is massive in the scheme of both team’s seasons, matching up with a superpower is nothing new to the Huskies for the remainder of the decade. Northern Illinois will play Maryland (2025), Mississippi State (2025), Iowa (2026), Arizona (2026), Nebraska (2027), Ohio State (2028), and a home-and-home against Missouri in 2028 (in Missouri) and 2029 (in Dekalb). The 2029 matchup with the Tigers will be the only time before the end of the decade that a Power Four school will visit Northern Illinois.
Whether the Huskies will have the resume by the end of the regular season to be that one Group of Five school that crashes the College Football Playoff remains to be seen. You can assuredly say that this loss will be a large blemish on Notre Dame’s record, regardless of where they end up. The Irish could end up helping Northern Illinois by taking down Miami (Ohio) next Saturday, which may be the only way to bolster their resume enough to jump back into the top 12 after Thanksgiving.
-JC24