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DeKALB – It was a forgettable day for Northern Illinois quarterback Ethan Hampton, who tossed four interceptions to the same player in Saturday’s 52-32 loss to Toledo – and a forgettable day overall for the Huskies, who dropped their fifth straight game after a 34-27 season-opening win over Eastern Illinois.
“We gotta start with playing four quarters of football. We haven’t done that,” NIU coach Thomas Hammock said postgame, referencing what NIU needs to do to get back in the win column. “For us to be the type of team we want to be, we have to have the focus and the attention to details for four full quarters to give ourselves a chance to win.”
The Huskies got off to a slow start in their homecoming game, conceding 14 points in the first 3:38 of the game and 21 points in the first quarter. Up until the fourth quarter – when it scored 25 of its 32 points – NIU’s only sign of life offensively was a Justin Lynch 15-yard touchdown run in the first quarter.
Hampton threw a 25-yard pick-six to Toledo cornerback Quinyon Mitchell on his first pass of the game, dropping the Huskies into a 14-0 hole with 11:22 to play in the first quarter. With 3:27 to play in the second quarter, Mitchell picked off another throw to the flat on the other side of the field, taking it 20 yards for a score and a 35-7 Rockets lead.
“I want to play better football as a team. Up until this game, we’ve played good football,” Hammock said. “We didn’t get the results, but we can say we played good football. We didn’t play undisciplined football, we didn’t turn the ball over, we didn’t do the things that we showed today. And that performance today is not indicative of the type of team we are. I’ve got to look myself in the mirror and say, ‘What do we need to do better? Or what can we do to continue to improve,’ knowing that we haven’t got the results that we wanted.”
With 16 seconds left in the first half, Hampton threw his third interception to Mitchell from the Toledo 3-yard line, sabotaging NIU’s most promising drive of the game up to that point.
Mitchell made a diving catch for pick No. 4 with 14:14 to play in the third quarter.
Hampton finished 30 for 49 with 284 passing yards, two touchdowns and four interceptions. His touchdowns – a 3-yarder to Travis Messiah and a 4-yarder to Drew Cassens – both came in the fourth quarter.
Hammock knows Hampton’s performance wasn’t good enough, but as a young player, he expects him to learn from it and better himself in the future.
“It’s not good enough. You can’t throw four picks and expect to win a football game. He’s got to look at the film, being able to evaluate that,” he said. “He’s a young player trying to find his way, and those things happen. He’ll get better, he’ll learn from it, but at that position if you throw four interceptions, that’s a problem for the team. And two pick-sixes. If we can’t protect the ball, we have to find something else to do. That’s a quarterback’s No. 1 job.”
Hammock said he stuck with the redshirt freshman as his starting quarterback over third-stringer Justin Lynch, believing he gave the Huskies a better chance to win playing from behind.
“Ethan gives us the best chance to move the ball throwing it. We got down, we wanted to fight ourselves back, and that’s what we tried to do,” he said. “I thought he had some moments in the fourth quarter where he played some good football, dumping the ball off, doing different things. But he’s got to be quicker in his timing to get the ball out.”
As the Huskies try to get their season back on track after a 1-5 start, they’re going to keep preparing for games the same way they always do.
“We’re going to come in and work. That’s what we do,” sophomore linebacker Daveren Rayner said. “No matter the results, we’re going to treat every day the same, we’re going treat every week the same. We’re going to prepare the same way every week, and that’s not going to change.”