Thomas Hammock, Northern Illinois soak in history after shocking Notre Dame

NIU, a program known for big upsets, just recorded the biggest upset of them all.

Photo courtesy of NIU Athletics.

Thomas Hammock was barely audible. He was two hours into a nearly three-hour bus ride home, so the partying had subsided a bit. But his voice, the one that America had just became familiar with through his passionate NBC interview, was completely hoarse from all that had just come before.

That’s what happens when you empty the tank. That’s what happens when you make history at a place that had already developed a well-earned rep for shocking the nation.

Northern Illinois 16, No. 5 Notre Dame 14.

“The Hard Way” — NIU’s program ethos — over “Choose Hard,” the Irish’s preferred motto under Marcus Freeman.

This was a 19th “Boneyard” win, which the Huskies define as victories over power conference, ranked or notable teams.

This was their first such win, however, over a top-5 team.

Their last win over a ranked nonconference team came at Alabama, then ranked No. 21, back in 2003. Hammock, a two-time All-MAC running back during his playing days in DeKalb, missed that milestone by a year.

So he soaked this one in. Not just for himself, but for all of the former Huskies players like him who had wished to make a statement like this.

“I just felt like we were in the fight, and any advantage that we needed or any emotion that we can pull from, I wanted to give these guys every opportunity to have this moment,” Hammock told The Inside Zone by phone. “I mean, this is a moment these guys are going to live with for the rest of their life. People still talk about the Alabama game from 2003. Just think (how) they’re going to talk about this game for years to come.”