NIU’s first bye of the decade couldn’t have come at a better time after historic upset of Notre Dame

DeKALB – For the first time since 2019, NIU has a full two weeks off between regular-season games.

Coach Thomas Hammock had been talking up the bye week all summer and how it came at a perfect time for the Huskies. But after the team beat No. 5 Notre Dame 16-14 on Saturday, it gives the team extra time to process all the attention that has come with the upset.

“Family, friends, students here at the school, they’re just really excited and shocked,” said defensive lineman Devonte O’Malley, who had four tackles and a forced fumble in the win. “But we weren’t shocked at all. We had a great game plan going in. We knew what it took and what we had to do. We got it done.”

The victory improves the Mid-American Conference to 1-51 all-time against teams ranked in the top five. Since then, the team has garnered multiple national awards while Hammock has been on national media programs.

On Wednesday, Hammock said, it will be back to business as usual.

“I’m excited to get back on the practice field,” Hammock said. “We gave them some time off to rest their bodies, rest their minds and to recover. That was a physical game for us, but I’m excited to get back on the practice field Wednesday and get after it.”

The Huskies are 2-0, ranked No. 25 in the AP poll, and face Buffalo in the MAC opener Sept. 21. The next week they head to North Carolina State to face the Wolfpack and former NIU head coach Dave Doeren.

It’s the second true bye week of Hammock’s tenure with the Huskies. While the team has 10-day bye weeks at the start of mid-week conference games, this is the first full two weeks off for the Huskies since between Weeks 3 and 4 of the 2019 season. They followed a 44-8 loss at Nebraska with a 24-18 loss at Vanderbilt as the team went 5-7 in Hammock’s first year.

O’Malley said he was glad for the week off after being beat up against Notre Dame. Hammock said the schedule fell perfectly.

“I think the bye, like I said when I saw the schedule, was perfect,” Hammock said, noting that the first four weeks of camp coupled with two games, then six games before the shift to MACtion, split the season into thirds. “Six weeks we can go as hard as we need to go to try and get as good as we need to get and then know we have some time to recover a little bit. ... Now we have six more weeks before the mini-bye. I love the way the schedule mapped out. I said that a long time ago.”

O’Malley said he’s making sure the team is ready to get back to normal when practice resumes Wednesday.

“I hit the group chat yesterday just telling the guys the game is in the past,” O’Malley said. “We won. Woo hoo. But we just beat one team. We can easily turn around and lose to Buffalo. So keep your heads on straight, and we’re going to go in and do big things this year.”

O’Malley was named the Bronko Nagurski National Defensive Player of the Week by the Football Writers Association of America. Kicker Kanon Woodill was the Lou Groza Award Star of the Week, and Woodill, O’Malley and Ethan Hampton swept the MAC Players of the Week award.

The Huskies also won a team of the week award from the FWAA.

“This is really everyone’s dream,” O’Malley said. “You want to be recognized. You want to be the best of the best. But at the end of the day we have 10 more games left. The job’s far from finished. We still have to go beat Buffalo then NC State, then we have UMass. We have to keep it up.”