NIU Huskies

An Elmhurst native with experience as both a coordinator and position coach, Rob Harley has joined the Northern Illinois University football coaching staff as defensive coordinator.

Quinn Sanders has been named offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Northern Illinois University, head coach Thomas Hammock announced Tuesday.

Former Sycamore teammates Evyn Carrier (Western Michigan) and Lexi Carlsen (NIU) combined for 19 points and 14 rebounds in the Broncos' 61-57 win over the Huskies on Saturday.

DeKalb has no mountains and is not in the west. MACtion is great. But neither are reasons to jeopardize the future. College football is about to change very quickly, and NIU administrators have taken a big swing to give the school's atlhetics the best chance to survive.

Thomas Hammock said it was better than beating Notre Dame. School and league officials talked in similar terms. The marriage between NIU football and the Mountain West conference was announced Tuesday. Here's what Hammock and others had to say.

The Northern Illinois University Board of Trustees on Tuesday approved a $2 million entry fee for the football team to join the Mountain West Conference, making the long-rumored move out of the MAC complete.

Northern Illinois University President Lisa Freeman, Vice President and Director of Athletics and Recreation Sean Frazier and Head Football Coach Thomas Hammock spoke during a press conference Tuesday announcing NIU football will be entering the Mountain West Conference starting with the 2026 season.

NIU has accepted a formal offer to join the Mountain West as a football-only member, according to a Board of Trustees agenda item for a meeting scheduled for Tuesday.

It's hard to argue a bowl win and a victory at Notre Dame don't comprise a successful season. But there's definitely a load of What If's hanging over the season.

With Northern Illinois dodging bullets all game long Saturday against Fresno State in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, the Huskies found some magic in their 28-20 double-overtime win—and used a little luck of the Irish, too.

NIU secured back-to-back bowl wins for the first time since 2010-11 with a thrilling 28-20 victory Saturday in double overtime against Fresno State in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl.

NIU's defense is relatively unscathed by the portal as they prepare to take on Fresno State in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl. We look at that and a couple other storylines from the game coming up Monday.

NIU coach Thomas Hammock said Josh Holst is an alpha. The walk-on redshirt freshman from Marengo gets to take over as the starting quarterback for the Huskies' bowl game on Monday.

NIU on Wednesday for the first time confirmed that it has an offer to join the Mountain West for football. A statement from the university said an "update" will come in early January.

It’s a rematch of the 2010 game, then the Humanitarian Bowl, which the Huskies won 40-17. This year will be the sixth meeting between the schools, with NIU leading the all-time series 3-2. The teams played twice in the 1970s and twice in the 1990s.

NILs. The transfer portal. Big money. All have changed college football. We look at how NIU coach Thomas Hammock approaches the changing landscape.

NIU announced a recruiting class loaded with tight ends and defensive lineman while DeKalb County high school players made their college plans official - including Burke Gautcher at Iowa.

NIU quarterback Ethan Hampton announced via social media on Sunday that he is entering the transfer portal with two years of eligibility remaining.

The Huskies stormed out of the gate offensively after making an unannounced changed at offensive coordinator after the Nov. 19 loss to Miami. The momentum lasted for a quarter in the 24-16 win over Central Michigan.

The Huskies scored the first 19 points on Saturday against Central Michigan then held on for the win in the regular season finale.

Jacob Waskow has appeared in 50 games for NIU in his career. Even with a ton of seniors on the defensive line, the group asked Waskow be allowed to start Saturday.

Kaneland boys basketball bounced back with win at Woodstock, Sycamore opens the season with a win and Sycamore wrestling sweeps its matches, plus more sports from around the area.

Having lost three straight games to Miami with a trophy on the line, NIU had the chance to exorcise a demon Tuesday in Oxford. And they didn’t do it Tuesday in a 20-9 loss to the RedHawks, the fourth straight for the Huskies since the inception of the Mallory Cup in 2018.

Quarterback Ethan Hampton turned the ball over twice as the NIU offense struggled throughout its loss to Miami on Tuesday. Here are five takeaways from the loss.

NIU looking to claim the Mallory Cup for the first time and its first win over Miami since 2015. Here's a look at Tuesday's MAC game.

NIU senior wide receiver Trayvon Rudolph said his reputation as a quarterback took a hit earlier this season against Notre Dame, when on a trick play he was off-target to a wide-open Dane Pardridge. Two months later, his reputation is repaired.

The NIU football team overcame a lot of rain and a blocked punt returned for a touchdown for a win against Akron on Wednesday, becoming bowl eligible for the second straight year.

A scoring push late in the first half staked the NIU men’s basketball team to a lead Tuesday night against Monmouth. A sustained defensive effort in the second half secured the win.

After knocking off the last undefeated team in the Mid-American Conference, the NIU football team returns home for the first time in 25 days to take on Akron.

The NIU offense scored on five straight drives after Santana Banner had an interception on a fake punt. Two plays after Cam Thompson's 91-yard kickoff return for a TD, the NIU defense had another pick. Big plays led to more big plays in a win over Western Michigan.

The NIU football team snapped a two-game losing streak on Wednesday with a win at Western Michigan. Here's a look at five of the key moments.

The DeKalb wrestling program has seen a surge in success over the last decade, wracking up individual honors and some team hardware. Now NIU has taken notice as well. Tommy Curran, Danny Curran and Jaocb Luce are on the NIU roster this season.

The struggling NIU football team heads to Kalamazoo on Wednesday to face MAC-leading Western Michigan. The Broncos (5-3, 4-0) are the only undefeated team last standing in the MAC and have won four straight games, including 52-21 against Kent State last time out on Oct. 26.

Chelby Koker helped spark the NIU women's basketball team to a come-from-behind win against Louisiana while the men opened the season with a loss at Georgia Southern.

Lexi Carlsen is adjusting to life as a freshman basketball player for NIU playing for a new coach. Who happens to be her mother, Lisa Carlsen. "There’s nothing I’d rather be doing and nobody I’d rather do it with than my mom."

A dropped 2-point conversion. Too much celebration. An uncharacteristic defensive showing. There were a lot of reasons NIU dropped a second-straight heartbreaker in MAC player. Here's what coach Thomas Hammock and the players said was costly.

Ball State hit a 52-yard field in the closing seconds, negating an NIU field goal seconds earlier in a wild ending in Muncie. The Huskies fell 25-23.

Whether it was for a rebuild or complimentary pieces to take care of unfinished business, the No. 1 priority for both the NIU men and women's basketball teams in the transfer portal was players who fit the culture of the program.

Ball State has won the Bronze Stalk game in four of the five seasons Thomas Hammock has been NIU's head coach. Here's why he and his players think it will be different this time.

The math doesn't add up. NIU had 391 yards of total offense. The Huskies ran 92 total plays. They didn’t turn the ball over. And they scored six points and lost 13-6 to Toledo, falling to 4-3 overall and 1-2 in the Mid-American Conference.

Despite almost 400 yards of total offense, the NIU football team couldn't find the end zone and lost at home to Toledo 13-6 on homecoming.

The Rockets are coming off a 30-15 loss at Buffalo while the NIU Huskies won 17-7 at Bowling Green. Kickoff is 2:30 p.m. Saturday on ESPN+. Here are three things to know about the game.

Josh Holst had a big play for a tide-turning touchdown. Skyler Gill-Howard had too many tide-turning defensive plays to list here. And the NIU football team had a tide-turning win to climb out of the MAC cellar.

NIU trailed in the fourth quarter, but pulled out a victory Saturday at Bowling Green, moving to 1-1 in the MAC behind a stifling defensive performance.

What happens if Antario Brown isn't available? Will the offense stop turning the ball over? What's the defense's reaction to being the second-best team nationally on third-down defense? We look at three key storylines heading into Saturday's NIU game against Bowling Green.

Antario Brown went down with an injury in the second quarter, with Gavin Williams and Jaylen Poe taking over the NIU ground attack. And after trailing by six at halftime with 118 yards on the ground, the Huskies pulled out a 34-20 win behind 249 second-half rushing yards.

After a lightning-fast start to the game that put the Huskies up seven after 50 seconds when they didn't even start with the ball, NIU faded later in the first half against UMass. But in the second half, the team found some consistency and came back for a win.

NIU held its last two opponents to under 200 yards of offense. The Huskies lost both games thanks to six total turnovers. They’ll search for their first win since beating No. 5 Notre Dame when they take on UMass (1-4). The game kicks off at 11 a.m. on CBS Sports Net.

NIU joining the Mountain West for football may just be a bunch of rumors and may never materialize. But it seems like there's a lot that makes sense and could benefit more sports than just football.

NC State threw a steady stream of pressure at quarterback Ethan Hampton — enough, in fact, to knock Northern Illinois back to .500.