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DeKALB – Rocky Lombardi knew the play he wanted to run. NIU coach Thomas Hammock and the coaching staff listened.
Lombardi found Grayson Barnes on third-and-14, and the Huskies ended up scoring the winning touchdown five plays later in a 20-13 win over Eastern Michigan on Saturday.
“We had a couple plays on the docket, and Rocky made his suggestion of the play he liked,” Hammock said. “When you make a suggestion, it better work, and he made the play. So we went with his play. He’s a coach on the field, he studies the film, he knew what was going to be open.”
After NIU (4-4, 3-1 Mid-American Conference) went 75 yards to score on its first drive, the offense struggled to move the ball the rest of the game. The Eagles (4-4, 2-2) took a 13-10 lead heading into the fourth.
The Huskies’ defense, which allowed 257 yards, forced a three-and-out, setting up the offense at their own 20 with 7:58 left. Hammock said it was a four-minute mentality at the point.
The Huskies turned a third-and-14 into a fourth-and-1 at their own 40, Hammock went for it, and Christian Nash picked up 2 yards. He hadn’t played much in the game or all season but was pressed into service after Antario Brown left the game with an injury.
His status wasn’t released after the game.
“It was not hard,” Hammock said. “We were going for the win. Fourth-and-1, you’ve got a 70% chance to make it. And Nash, he didn’t play much this game, but coaches felt confident with him this week to give him a dive. And what a tremendous dive.
“But we were going for the win, I can tell you that.”
On the next series, NIU was called for holding, one of 10 penalties for 85 yards on the Huskies in the game. So on third-and-14, Lombardi gave his suggestion to the staff.
Lombardi, in his third year with the Huskies after transferring from Michigan State, said it’s a credit to Hammock and the coaching staff that they listened to his call.
“Almost all the coaching staffs in the country, they’d be like, ‘All right, good suggestion, but this is what we’re going to run,’ ” Lombardi said. “I felt comfortable on the play, I liked the matchup we had, and we went out and executed. It takes a lot to listen to a kid, right?”
“No, you’re a man now, you’re 25,” Hammock said. “If he was 18, I don’t know if I’d listen to him at 18. But he’s 25. He’s a grown man.”
Going into the wind, Lombardi unleashed a rocket. Barnes elevated and came away with it just behind a defender for the 26-yard gain.
“As soon as I got hip-to-hip, right past the nickel there, I saw the opening, I saw the ball in the air, and he could not have put me in a better spot to go get it and get the first down,” Barnes said.
Two plays later, Gavin Williams ran the ball 34 yards down to the EMU 2 with 1:16 left. Lombardi took a knee on first down, made an attempt to push forward on second, then punched it in on third from a yard out.
On the frantic EMU drive that followed, with the Eagles out of timeouts, Devontae O’Malley intercepted the ball with 0:27 left to seal the win, the second fourth-quarter interception in the game for the Huskies.
NIU finished with 289 yards of offense, 155 of those coming on their first and last drives of the game — their only two touchdown drives.
Hammock coached running backs for the Baltimore Ravens from 2014 to 2018 before taking the NIU job. He said one of the things he learned there was how important the relationship is between the quarterback and head coach.
“This is a players’ game, right?” Hammock said. “They go out and play. A couple plays ago, we liked a play out of bunch, and it didn’t look like much in practice, and Rocky said, ‘I don’t like that play. It’s too cloudy.’
“If I’m going to be a good coach, and a player doesn’t like a play, they have to go execute the play ... and if there’s something out there he sees, he likes, he’s out there playing.”