Last week, up in South Bend, IN, the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame were preparing to play the Huskies of Northern Illinois. This should have been an easy game for Notre Dame and could have been used as a warm-up to see who could start and who could execute correctly. Over at NIU they were getting ready to play the hardest game of their early season by far.
ESPN writer, Adam Rittenburg had to say about the game.”The one emotion Hammock (NIU’s head coach) didn’t feel Saturday was surprise. He knew when he studied Notre Dame six days before the game that Northern Illinois would have a real chance to win. Hammock especially liked how the Huskies matched up at the line of scrimmage. He front-loaded NIU’s week with more demanding practices on Monday and Tuesday, which gave players’ bodies time to recover. The more we watched the film, the more we realized this is a beatable team.” Quarterback, Ethan Hampton, told Rittenburg of ESPN, “I’ll take our O-line over anyone in the country.’” The Huskies went into this game with some swagger and believed they had a chance to beat ND. Coach Hammock had this to say after the game, “It wasn’t a fluke win, we were good in the trenches, and those guys were the difference in the game. We build our program inside-out, so you have to be able to win there to give yourself an opportunity in games like this. Those guys played their butts off,” said Hammock. NIU’s Director of Athletics, Sean Frazier, had this to say about the big win, “This is such a huge statement for the program and for NIU,” Frazier said. “There’s a lot of people talking about Group of 5, Power 4, the money and the resources, and NIL. It’s about the players and it’s about lining up and banging heads and may the best man win. You saw that Saturday,” said Frazier
How will this loss affect the rest of the season for Notre Dame? Losing that game means the Irish dropped out of the College Football Playoff field unless they can win every game for the rest of the season. CBS Sports’s Jerry Palm said this about the game, ”Northern Illinois sent shockwaves through the college football world on Saturday afternoon with a 16-14 win at No. 5 Notre Dame. And here we all thought Texas vs. Michigan was going to provide us with the most important result of the day in Week 2.”
Uhnd.com’s Thomas Dorwart had this to say, ”Notre Dame started the day as four-touchdown favorites over unranked Northern Illinois. They ended the day outcoached, outhustled, outrun, outsmarted, and maybe out cold on the canvas this early in the season. The Irish were coming off a big win at Texas A&M to open the season but were caught flat-footed by the Huskies, who won both lines of scrimmage in the victory. Notre Dame’s win over the Aggies put them in last week’s College Football Playoff projection, but this week’s loss dropped them right back out.” No one thought this would be a game and only some of NIU’s players thought it would not be a blowout.
Notre Dame Football will more than likely be making a QB change since senior, Riley Leonard, suffered a shoulder injury during the NIU game. Uhnd.com’s Thomas Dorwart said this about the QB selection by Coach Marcus Freeman, ”Coach brought in a quarterback who didn’t play in spring ball and cannot throw a deep ball. That quarterback has thrown zero touchdown passes and two interceptions through eight quarters of football. How did that quarterback (Leonard) beat out Steve Angeli and Kenny Minchey (other ND QBs) or even CJ Carr, who we saw throw beautiful deep balls in the Sun Bowl and the Spring Game? Those players all chose Notre Dame from day one. They have stuck by Notre Dame and not transferred.” One of those three underclassmen QB’s will likely be making their first start against Purdue this Saturday at Ross-Ade Stadium because it is a must win game for the Irish.
In summary, the NIU/ND game was supposed to be easy for the Irish and they would move on with the rest of their season. However, they were caught offguard by Northern Illinois who played with confidence and experience, and ND’s season was changed.
