NIU Football: Work gets tougher in year two for Thomas Hammock

After nearly reaching bowl eligibility in Thomas Hammock’s first season at the helm in DeKalb, NIU football has lost a lot of talent.

When Rod Carey left Northern Illinois to take the Temple job after winning the MAC championship for the second time, the school tabbed an NFL position coach as his replacement. Thomas Hammock came to DeKalb after five seasons as the running backs coach for the Baltimore Ravens.

More importantly, though, Hammock is an alumnus of the school who played football for the Huskies at the turn of the century. Taking advantage of a relatively experienced roster in 2019, Hammock and his staff led Northern Illinois to five wins in their first season. After dropping all of their September games against Power Five opponents, NIU recovered to play .500 football in conference play.

That ultimately wasn’t enough to secure bowl eligibility for the Huskies, who fell one game short of the mark. Even though they lose some major talent in 2020, though, there is plenty of reason to hope for marginal improvement in the new season. Hammock’s first campaign at the helm offered promising building blocks that the team can use as a foundation moving forward.

Can they return to bowl eligibility in 2020, or will Northern Illinois post back-to-back losing records in the regular season for the first time since 1998 and 1999? Will Hammock and his crew be able to build upon last season’s promising moments despite losing spring practice to the coronavirus pandemic?

Let’s dive in to look at the offense and defense at Northern Illinois before breaking down the 2020 Huskies schedule and making some predictions on how the next campaign will play out.