‘Nerves were like good nerves’: NIU’s Kanon Woodill’s late FG big in upset of Notre Dame

SOUTH BEND, Indiana – Kanon Woodill’s game against Western Illinois wasn’t the best, missing a pair of extra points.

But a week later, the Northern Illinois senior kicker from Plainfield North was one of the Huskies’ heroes in a 16-14 win over Notre Dame, pushing the Huskies into the AP top 25 for the first time since 2013.

“Last week, I didn’t have that great of a game,” Woodill said. “A lot of low kicks. First-game nerves, it is what it is. You put it behind you, and you move on. That’s what I did.

“Coming into this game, it just felt so different. The nerves that were there were like good nerves, like happiness and excitement, less jittery and shaky. But it didn’t feel much different from a normal kick.”

Woodill’s 35-yard field goal with 31 seconds left put NIU ahead and secured the upset, the first time NIU – or any MAC team – defeated a top-5 program.

But it was far from the only pivotal special teams play in the game. Cabe Haberman had a pair of blocked field goals in the win, including on Mitch Jeter’s 62-yard attempt as time expired that would have given the Irish the win.

Haberman also blocked Jeter’s 48-yard attempt as time expired in the first half. He said long field goals make a lower trajectory, which makes it easier to block.

“So props to the defense for stopping them when they did,” Haberman said. “It gave the interior three an opportunity to get their hands on it and make a play. ... That last one, I knew it was going to be right above my head.”

As he watched Jeter’s attempt before Haberman got his hands on it, Woodill said he might have been tempting fate a little.

“It’s a really hard kick, but not like totally out of the question,” Woodill said. “Watching it, it might be bad karma, but you’re like, ‘Let my kick be the winner, not his.’ So it was stressful.”

Quarterback Ethan Hampton, who picked up a key fourth-and-2 from the Notre Dame 31 to help shorten the kick for Woodill, said he was confident the kick would be good.

That doesn’t mean he was able to watch it go though.

“I couldn’t watch, to be honest,” Hampton said. “Kanon’s been there before. He’s won games for us multiple times. I was nervous, but I knew he was going to make it. But I still couldn’t watch. I had all the faith in the world.”

NIU coach Thomas Hammock said he told his staff before the game he had a dream the game boiled down to a field goal. He said he woke up before he figured out what happened.

Apparently, he said, the kick was good.

“He nailed it. He hit it flush,” Hammock said. “This is going to be a moment he’s going to have engraved in his mind the rest of his life. And that’s why you coach. You want those moments for players.”

Woodill said he tries to tuck most of his thoughts out there when he’s making a kick, focusing on just kicking footballs. A 35-yarder is well within his range, a makeable kick, so that was his focus.

And it’s something he expects to remember forever. Or at least, he hopes too.

“It’s something I’ll never forget, right? Until I’m super old and maybe get dementia or Alzheimer’s or something,” Woodill said. “But it’ll be something truly I’ll never forget. But in the moment, it’s like cool, let’s move on to the next one.”