DEKALB, Ill. — When Northern Illinois quarterback Josh Holst saw that videos of coach Thomas Hammock were ringing up millions of views on social media over the last couple of weeks, he wasn’t surprised.
“Not really,” Holst said. “He goes viral every once in a while. … He’s just like that.”
Hammock’s players know how he often speaks — the passion for college football and his program pouring out of him.
There was the on-field interview at Notre Dame Stadium last September, when tears streamed down Hammock’s face as he told a shocked college football world what it meant that his Huskies beat then-No. 5 Notre Dame.
And on Aug. 13, during NIU’s on-campus media day, he delivered a speech of a different sort, imploring athletes and their parents to take into account more than just money and attention when they consider the transfer portal.
The message spoke to the ongoing annual upheaval many college coaches face with the transfer portal, especially at Group of Six programs. But it also applied to his team specifically. The Huskies lost nine players who made a start last season to the portal, including starting quarterback Ethan Hampton, who transferred to Illinois where he will back up Luke Altmyer.
“I told our team the other day, ‘We lost all these guys, let’s see who plays,’” Hammock said during the news conference. “It’s all good when people put it on Twitter, ‘Hey, all glory to God, I’m going in the transfer portal.’ Let’s see if they play. How many of those guys are going to play or travel or get snaps?
“I enjoyed my college experience (as an NIU running back). I didn’t get one dime, but the lessons I learned were more valuable than any money you could ever pay me, and I appreciate that, because that is long-term. People are losing the fact that this is short-term. … Get your degree, learn valuable lessons that’s going to help you in the long term of your life.”
Hammock, whose daughter is a high school lacrosse recruit, wants people to know he’s not against players transferring or seeking financial rewards for their play. He is also proud that all of his players who transferred approached him first to have conversations about it, saying it points to the type of men he has on his team.
He just wants players’ development — on and off the field and in the classroom — to also be major factors.
“I have a tremendous passion for helping student-athletes, and that’s why I came back to college, just to help mentor and guide and lead young men,” Hammock told the Tribune. “That’s been my life’s work, and something I think is important. When this is something that you’ve been committed to for 20-something-plus years, and all of a sudden the values and things that you grew up on no longer matter, that’s what’s kind of hard to take.”
As Northern Illinois prepares to open its final season in the Mid-American Conference on Saturday against Holy Cross at Huskie Stadium, Hammock keeps trying anyway.
Attacking the challenge
The Huskies’ slogan “The Hard Way” has been around since the 1990s, when a transfer player introduced the motivational phrase to push his teammates through tough practices, according to the athletic department.
But the words — printed instead of names on the back of NIU’s practice jerseys and displayed as a hashtag on the stadium wall — have taken on a different meaning for the team in the portal and now revenue-sharing era.
Northern Illinois head coach Thomas Hammock watches his team stretch during practice on Aug. 22, 2025, at Huskie Stadium. (Dominic Di Palermo/ Chicago Tribune)
Hammock, who is 32-38 with three bowl appearances in six seasons at NIU, took several moments to figure out how to describe his program’s financial disadvantage compared to some of the teams his players transferred to in the wake of the recently approved House vs. NCAA settlement. NIU opted into participating in revenue sharing, but schools don’t have to hit the $20.5 million spending cap, and many smaller athletic departments won’t.
Hammock, who expressed a desire for all conferences to implement a spending floor, didn’t want to share specific numbers about his team. But he finally came up with an analogy.
“They have houses. We live in an apartment,” he said. “They own. We rent.”
The discrepancy — and the effects it has yearly on rosters — could be enough to drive a coach in a place like DeKalb insane.
Hammock just chooses to view it a different way.
“I love the challenge of a place like this,” Hammock said. “I do. It keeps me going. There’s always something new, something you have to adapt to. My strength as a coach has always been my ability to adapt and adjust and find creative ways to offset something that’s a challenge or something that may not be right. And so when somebody says you can’t, I see it as an opportunity. … I think there are a lot of coaches in this profession that can’t do what I can do, and I think that makes me unique.”
A major challenge, of course, is to keep his team competitive year in and year out amid roster turnover from players lured to other schools by the desire for change or the appeal of a bigger stage or a better payday.
Hammock has told his staff that they need to be ready to develop players six months quicker than might have once been normal before the portal era. So instead of sticking promising young players on the scout team for an entire season, they’ll work them in real practice reps too.
If they have an eight-play rack, they might give two plays to a younger player. By the end of the season, that player will have a couple hundred plays under his belt.
“How can we creatively develop young people, in a sense to say, how can we steal reps?” Hammock said. “How can we give them opportunities to show different things that they can do and get them accelerated in our program? With the understanding that if we lose a guy in December, we have a younger guy that’s ready to step right into that role.”
Hammock points to Holst as a product of his staff’s long-term development vision.
A former walk-on from Marengo, Holst improved rapidly last year as a redshirt freshman and played in six games with two starts in the regular season. When Hampton entered the portal before the Huskies met Fresno State in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, the Huskies turned to Holst.
Northern Illinois quarterback Josh Holst throws a pass to a teammate at practice on Aug. 22, 2025, at Huskie Stadium in Dekalb. (Dominic Di Palermo/ Chicago Tribune)
He led NIU to a 28-20, double-overtime victory in the bowl, throwing for 182 yards and two touchdowns and rushing for 65 yards. And Holst believes that experience will provide a big boost this season as he looks to replace Hampton.
“It’s going to help a ton,” Holst said. “Just having that experience lowers the stress level down a little bit. You know how fast it is. You know what certain looks look like. You know the physicality of it.”
Tough decisions
When Hampton met with reporters in January after transferring to Illinois, he was complimentary of the way Hammock “has greatly improved that program” during his NIU tenure.
But he also explained that he felt Illinois was the best opportunity and fit as he looks to improve his game and advance to the NFL.
“When I came on my visit here (to Illinois), saw the culture, saw what they had cooking for the future, that’s really what pulled me in,” Hampton told reporters. “It’s like a pro program. It feels like everyone is here to win. Everyone is here to go to the NFL.”
Illinois quarterback Ethan Hampton throws a pass during practice at Memorial Stadium on Aug. 7, 2025, in Champaign. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)
Besides Hampton, the Huskies also lost most of their wide receiver corps, with Trayvon Rudolph (Toledo), Cam Thompson (Mississippi State) and Dane Pardridge (Rutgers) departing.
Beyond just transfers, NIU had 32 seniors leave from last season’s 8-5 team, including 20 who had been with the team their entire careers.
They also replaced all three coordinators. The Huskies fired offensive coordinator Wesley Beschorner midseason. Former defensive coordinator Nick Benedetto and special teams coordinator Adam Breske went to Fresno State and took some players with them. Benedetto had led an NIU defense that ranked in the top five in FBS in yards allowed and top 15 in points allowed.
So it’s an odd time for those that are returning, including just five starters.
Defensive end Jalonnie Williams is one of them, despite entering the portal in December. He missed the bowl as he explored his options but ended up staying at NIU, where he said they welcomed him back as if nothing had changed.
Now he is hopeful Hammock — who coached five seasons in the NFL with the Baltimore Ravens — can help propel him to his NFL dreams.
“I didn’t want to leave in the first place,” Williams said. “It was a struggle for me. I had conversations with a couple of coaches about how I wanted to stay. I thought outside of football there were better opportunities for me. Once I got back on the phone with Coach Hammock and (assistant athletic director) Dan Wolfe, they ended up being able to give me what I needed, and now I’m back.”
Northern Illinois defensive end Jalonnie Williams stretches during practice on Aug. 22, 2025, at Huskie Stadium. (Dominic Di Palermo/ Chicago Tribune)
Despite his portal exploration, Williams found some truth in Hammock’s viral social media comments, saying he knows some transfers are not happy with their new situations.
Defensive end Roy Williams, also a returning starter, isn’t on social media, so he said he didn’t see how his coach’s comments were received. But he also saw a point in them.
“I think it’s kind of crazy, the flipping like a skillet and jumping from team to team,” said Roy Williams, who is not related to Jalonnie Williams. “I’m a man of my word, so if I say I’m going to be somewhere, I’m going to be there.”
Northern Illinois defensive end Roy Williams warms up during practice on Aug. 22, 2025, at Huskie Stadium. (Dominic Di Palermo/ Chicago Tribune)
Hammock pointed to the stories of Jalonnie Williams and Roy Williams as examples of the way he and his staff help players grow, saying “sometimes you can’t put a price tag on those types of things.” Both were named to preseason All-MAC teams.
“They can go somewhere else, and nobody knows their story and nobody knows their history, and they treat them like a number,” Hammock said. “And then now you’ve got other problems, right? That’s what my point was, with looking at the long term and helping people develop and grow. That’s going to help them in life. To me, that’s what we’re trying to do here, help young people be the best version of themselves, so they can be husbands, fathers and productive members of society.”
Using the attention
Jalonnie Williams’ family kept calling him as Notre Dame marched along in the College Football Playoff to face Ohio State in the national championship game.
What if the Irish actually won?
“Honestly, I was rooting for them a little bit in the national championship,” Jalonnie Williams said. “Because it would have been nice to walk around and say we were the only team to beat the national champions.”
The Huskies settled for being the only team besides the national champion Buckeyes to beat Notre Dame last season. As exhilarating as it was, the players who remain from last year’s team don’t talk about the win much. The Huskies’ up-and-down season after that win was a reality check.
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“It’s not in my mind no more, if I’m being honest,” Roy Williams said. “If you ride the wave of the hype, it allows the devil to creep in certain ways. When you’re caught up on last season, and you’re not focused on these opponents, that’s how you get beat.”
Hammock will occasionally point to the win with his players, but only in referencing the level of focus and attention to detail that is required to pull off such a feat.
But he’d be happy to talk about it with outside observers, because that’s where he wished the national attention the Huskies gained from the win would pay off.
With an actual payoff.
“It shows the possibilities of this place and the potential of this place,” Hammock said. “And if there’s a major donor out there that wants to back us, we can do some special things here.”
NIU announced in January that it will move to the Mountain West for football in 2026, ending a Mid-American Conference run that has spanned 40 seasons, including 19 straight. Athletic director Sean Frazier believes the move will help NIU financially as it begins the revenue-sharing era.
But as coaches must do now, Hammock still made a public plea for more help.
He said NIU will remain a developmental program. But he believes that with the right investment to help the Huskies provide both financial incentives and the proper amenities for his players, his program can “punch above your weight.”
“It doesn’t have to be Texas Tech-style,” Hammock said of the spending splurge led by billionaire donor Cody Campbell. “But on a much smaller scale, a donor like that. I think we can do tremendous things here.”
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/08/27/northern-illinois-football-thomas-hammock-transfer-portal/
