NIU at Notre Dame: Three things to know about the Huskies historic trip to South Bend

DeKALB – The NIU football team heads to South Bend, Indiana, on Saturday to face Notre Dame for the first time in program history.

The Irish enter the game ranked fifth in the latest AP poll after a 23-13 win at Texas A&M, while the Huskies are coming off a 54-15 home win against Western Illinois.

It’s the fourth time the Huskies play a ranked team under sixth-year coach Thomas Hammock. The team lost 35-17 to a Utah team ranked 13th at the time in 2019 and 63-10 to No. 25 Michigan in 2021, although the Wolverines would finish ranked third that year and NIU would win the MAC. In 2022, the Huskies lost to No. 8 Kentucky 31-23.

Kickoff is at 2:30 p.m. Saturday. The game will be on NBC, the first time the Huskies are on a national telecast on a broadcast network.

Here are three things to know about Saturday’s game.

Ethan Hampton tries to follow up ‘phenomenal’ game

Hammock called Hampton’s performance “phenomenal,” as he passed for 328 yards, completing 18 of 20 attempts. Hammock said it could have been 20 for 20 with the right throws on the two incompletions.

Hampton also set the Huskies’ single-game passing efficiency record, finishing with a 310.3 rating after five touchdowns and no interceptions. He was named the MAC offensive player of the week.

“We’ve seen glimpses of what he did last week in practice,” Hammock said. “To do it in a game under real conditions should give him a tremendous amount of confidence moving forward as he continues to develop. Because he’s still going to get better.”

Xavier Watts and Adon Shuler had interceptions for the Irish in their win over the Aggies as the Notre Dame secondary allowed just 100 passing yards.

It’s not Hampton’s first go-around against a top-10 team. Against Kentucky, he started for an injured Rocky Lombardi, completing 13 of 25 passes for 196 yards, a touchdown and no interceptions.

NIU’s defensive line takes on inexperienced Notre Dame offensive line

The Irish’s five offensive line starters have now started 11 combined games in their careers after the win at Texas A&M. They allowed one sack.

Western Illinois didn’t break 100 rushing yards against NIU, but Roy Williams came up with the only NIU sack of the day. The defense will look to get to quarterback Riley Leonard on Saturday.

“Our defensive line is very, very experienced,” defensive lineman Devonte O’Malley said. “And their O-line is a young group. But we’re not going to look past them because they have X amount of starts. We prepare throughout the week the right week, how we do every week. We don’t change anything up just for the opponent. We prepare the same way.”

Playing in a storied stadium

The Huskies will leave for South Bend on Friday, Hammock said, and will participate in a walkthrough at Notre Dame Stadium until 4 p.m. That way, the team should be a little more acclimated by kickoff for the nationally televised game.

“These kids are different, right? They want to take the pictures, do the social media,” Hammock said. “So the quicker we can get that done with on Friday, the better we can be on Saturday.”

The Huskies have been simulating crowd noise throughout practice this week, so much so that Hammock said he knows the Notre Dame fight song by heart.

Hammock has praised his team’s maturity and experience since the start of spring camp. NIU’s 32 seniors is sixth most in the country, and 20 of them have spent their entire career with the Huskies. Only Stanford and Navy with 23 each have more seniors who have spent their entire career at the same school.

“We’ve been through a lot of ups and downs with each other,” senior lineman Evan Buss said. “A lot of really crappy summer workouts. A lot of fights. That builds a really good roster and a good team.”

Prediction: Notre Dame 35, NIU 10