In hiring Thomas Hammock as the head football coach at Northern Illinois University, the school went with one of its own.
When Rod Carey abruptly left Northern Illinois for the head coaching job at Temple University, Northern Illinois was forced to scramble. Enter Thomas Hammock. He was coaching running backs for the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens, when Northern Illinois came calling.
In Hammock, the Huskies get a Northern Illinois double. From 1999-2002 Hammock was a running back at Northern Illinois under head coach Joe Novak. In 2005-2006, Hammock was running backs coach for Novak, in part because of season-ending injury.
The Novak/Hammock pairing was a good one for Northern Illinois football.
The Joe Novak era at Northern Illinois started 3-30, 1996-1998. Northern Illinois opened 0-4 in 1999. Hammock was a freshman in 1999 and William Andrews was Northern Illinois’ featured running back. But, Hammock was there when needed. By midseason, the Huskies won five of their final seven games to finish with a 5-6 record.
As a sophomore in 2000 and junior in 2001, Hammock was a featured back. He surpassed 1,000 yards on each occasion. All-America Michael Turner was in the same Northern Illinois backfield at the time so Hammock must have been doing something right.
Northern Illinois ended 6-5 each in Hammock’s sophomore and junior years. Sadly, a heart condition limited Hammock to one game in 2002, a 172-yard production.
One thing Hammock will have to deal with is elevated expectations at Northern Illinois.
Novak was only 63-76 in 12 seasons at Northern Illinois. However, from the midpoint of his fourth season, 1999, through his final year, 2007, the Huskies were 60-42. Lest we forget, Novak’s team won at Alabama and beat an Urban Meyer-coached Bowling Green team.
Jerry Kill, 23-16 at Northern Illinois, followed Novak. Then, Dave Doeren, 23-4, and Rod Carey, 52-30. Bowl games and MAC championship game appearances have become the order of the day at Northern Illinois. Hammock will be cut little slack if things start to go wrong.
In 2018, the Huskies were the only MAC team not to tack on a lesser-division opponent (FCS), with a diet of Iowa, Utah, Florida State, and Brigham Young.
• Until Sunday, the New Orleans Saints Tommylee Lewis was best known for his two kickoff returns for touchdowns against Toledo while playing at Northern Illinois in 2011.
Now, in the Los Angeles Rams’ 26-23 overtime victory over the Saints in the NFC championship game Sunday, Lewis was denied an obvious interference call. Had the call been made, the Saints would have been in good position to win the game in regulation. No call, and, no trip to Super Bowl LIII for Lewis and the Saints.