Seven years of Thomas Hammock at the helm of NIU football included the program’s most historic victory, its first back-to-back bowl wins in more than a decade, a worst-to-first turnaround in 2020 and 2021 and enough juice to make the move to the Mountain West.

It also included three seasons of three wins or fewer and a monumentally weak showing in the Mid-American Conference games that mattered the most.

Before Hammock’s arrival, the last time the Huskies failed to finish above .500 in back-to-back years in conference play was in 1997 and 1998, their first two years back in the league after leaving in 1985. Hammock’s Huskies accomplished the feat in his first two years and his last two years.

So what is Hammock’s legacy at the school? Does a win over Notre Dame, one MAC championship, a brief appearance in the AP Top 25 and a 2-1 bowl record make up for a 23-31 conference record?

(There also needs to be an asterisk regarding how much the game of college football changed between 2019 and 2025. This was not the same sport when he took over and when he left. Yes, it’s well-documented. Yes, every coach had to deal with it. But that doesn’t change the fact it happened.)

Once you start digging into the MAC numbers, they’re pretty bad. No one is expecting a title every year - well some of you are, but some of you are nuts. The 2010s was the decade of NIU supremacy in the MAC, with four titles, the last in 2018, Rod Carey’s last year before leaving for Temple and Hammock coming on from the Baltimore Ravens to replace him.

The biggest failure has to be in the Battle for the Bronze Stalk. For two decades, NIU owned Ball State, going 17-3 in their last 20 meetings before 2019. Under Hammock, that flipped to 2-5.

It wasn’t just Ball State. The Huskies were 0-4 in their other trophy game, losing each Mallory Cup contest to Miami. Things might have been trending downward with a 2018 loss under Carey to the RedHawks, but even with that NIU had won seven of the nine meetings before Hammock took over.

The Huskies were 3-3 against Eastern Michigan. That’s not awful on paper at least, but they had won 11 straight and 19 of 21. They lost two straight to EMU in 2019 and 2020, the first time that happened since 1957-1958. Not great.

They were 2-4 against Central Michigan, which was Hammock’s chance to right the ship. NIU beat the Chippewas in 2018, but lost four straight to CMU before that.

And then there’s Buffalo. I feel like if you could change any one result in the Hammock era, the loss to the Bulls in 2024 after beating Notre Dame would have the biggest impact.

Instead of going from being ranked one week to a non-factor in the MAC the next, maybe the Huskies get some momentum and don’t finish 4-4 in league play. Maybe they find their way into the MAC title game. Maybe they don’t lose everybody in the portal and maybe 2025 isn’t a lost season.

After all, this was a Bulls team that NIU had defeated 12 straight times before losing to them in 2020. Buffalo has beaten NIU three times in their series history, twice with Hammock coaching the Huskies.

Honestly, the two-week stretch in 2024 from the Notre Dame win to the Buffalo loss is as good a summation of the Hammock years as you’ll find.

An improbable, incredible win that energizes the fan base followed by a fiery, emotional speech that goes viral. Two weeks of nonstop press, making the most of the moment to increase the visibility of the program.

Then, just like that, it all disappears with a loss that is just as unthinkable as the win in South Bend was two weeks prior.

That’s Thomas Hammock’s legacy. The highest highs, the lowest lows, and no warning before either one.