Thomas Hammock doesn’t like the “upset” label that’s often tagged on his team’s 16-14 win last season over eventual national runners up Notre Dame. Sure, the Huskies were the first MAC team to ever beat a top 5 opponent. And sure, the Irish were a 28-point favorite. But to Hammock, the word “upset” implies something flukey occurred.
That not what happened. Northern Illinois won the line of scrimmage. It didn’t allow a sack. It limited Notre Dame’s top 10 rushing attack to just 4.4 yards per touch.
“If you go back and watch the game and put blank jerseys on both teams, you’d say it was a tremendous physical affair of teams going back and forth, and you can’t tell which one has $20 million and which one don’t,” Hammock said.
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If anyone had any doubt, it’s Notre Dame that had close to a $20 million roster.
Northern Illinois? Hammock thinks of it this way: He made just over $700,000 last season as NIU’s head coach. Notre Dame quarterback Riley Leonard? He had a NIL deal last season worth around $1 million, per sources.
“The discrepancy in money is like the New York Yankees and a Single-A club,” Hammock said.
The dichotomy of that win for Northern Illinois and the gulf in roster spending versus Notre Dame makes the Huskies — a program with far less than a $1 million NIL budget — so fascinating in this era of college football.
To understand how that happened — and the 8-win season and second-ranked recruiting class in the MAC that followed it — you need to understand the Huskies’ developmental philosophy.
Yes, everyone “develops.” But for Northern Illinois it’s a matter of survival.
The Huskies capped their 2024 season with a double-OT win over Fresno State in the Idaho Potato Bowl. By that time six of the team’s starters had entered the transfer portal and moved to Power Four schools. Three more would transfer to the Power Four ranks by the conclusion of spring practice.
Eight wins. Nine starters gone to the portal.
That’s the reality for those in the MAC and the Group of Six ranks in general, a place in which nearly 70% of returning first-team all-conference selections opted to transfer during the winter window.
Hammock knows this. He used to get upset about all his players departing. He put so much into them. But it’s like he tells his staff: Even if the Huskies had $3 million, they weren’t going to be able to keep most of the people who departed; for example, DT transfer Skyler Gill-Howard earned a $850,000 NIL payday in transferring to Texas Tech, per a source.
“The right thinking is constantly recruiting high school kids who can fit and grow in our program and make us competitive for the long term as opposed to putting all of our resources into one guy,” Hammock said. “In the NFL, if you get an older veteran that’s costing you a lot of money, a lot of times what they’d do is make the decision to move on. … We have to have that same mentality with how we build our roster.”
So, Hammock runs his practices differently to align with that viewpoint. Last season he often cut practices a bit short to get what he calls the players in his “developmental program” more reps. They might not be ready for Week 1. But maybe by midseason those extra reps pay off.
They did.
Freshman back Telly Johnson emerged as a late-season star for the Huskies, twice clearing the 100-yard barrier in the team’s final four regular season games. Redshirt freshman QB Josh Holst earned his first victory as a starter in the bowl game.
“In this day and age, you have to understand you’re always going to be younger than what you think,” Hammock said.
Northern Illinois recruits differently than the rest of the MAC.
The Huskies signed 31 high prospects as part of the 2025 class. Only one other team in the MAC (Eastern Michigan, 26) signed more than 23. Conversely, the Huskies inked only 13 transfer commits. Only Buffalo (9) and Central Michigan (11) signed fewer while every other program in the MAC signed 17-plus. NIU has averaged just five transfer additions a cycle over the last five seasons.
There are dueling reasons for this:
1. Hammock doesn’t see much of a reason to sign Power Four expats. He’ll add them occasionally when the staff has a connection to that player and receives good feedback. Mostly, however, Hammock thinks: “If they can play for us, (Power Fours) wouldn’t be taking our players.”
2. Hammock views high school recruiting as the only sustainable way to build. Backups on the Power Four level make more than his entire roster. Northern Illinois can’t outbid teams for transfers. They have to develop starters and then develop depth behind them in a constant high school churn.
Facing one’s reality often leads to invention, and the Huskies, led by Hammock and general manager Andy Wang, have been one of the most successful evaluating outfits on the G6 level.
Take 2025 cornerback James Finley for example.
When a lot of bigger schools looked at Finley, they saw a 6-foot-1, string bean cornerback who looked too small to hold up on the Power Four level. Northern Illinois viewed it differently. Finley was 6-foot-1 with good length, impressive track numbers as a state hurdler — indicating his explosiveness as an athlete — a multi-sport background and impressive tape as a three-way player on offense, defense and special teams.
The Huskies loved Finley’s athletic profile and figured they could put 20 pounds on him.
He’s put on 13 so far and by now many have seen the vision. Finley finished the 2025 cycle as a four-star prospect — the No. 7 overall player in Indiana — and only the second ever four-star signee in NIU history. The other ALSO came this year in the form of tight end Caleb Haack.
No other team in the MAC signed a four-star recruit. The Huskies are the only G6 team besides Memphis to sign two.
The 2025 season is one of transition for the Huskies. They’ll play one more year in the MAC before moving to a new-look Mountain West. It’s a shift Hammock hopes will infuse more investment in the football program from a rev-share perspective and one he believes positions Northern Illinois as the go-to program in the Midwest for high school recruits who don’t earn a Power Four offer.
For now, however, the Huskies have one more season in a wide-open MAC.
Only two teams in the league return more than 10 starters; they all fight the churn of the portal. Northern Illinois returns just five, but that’s a condition Hammock is used to operating under. The Huskies won the 2021 MAC championship with a young roster. He believes the way NIU recruits and develops — including the addition of several FCS transfers with starting experience — has the program situated to contend once again in 2025.
“If we can continue to stay cutting edge with our thought process with additions to our team and how they fit, we’re going to always have a chance to be competitive,” Hammock said. “Everyone else is going through the same thing. It’s going to be who can build their team the best and the quickest before the season starts.”
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