Northern Illinois coach Thomas Hammock is leaving the Huskies to join the Seattle Seahawks as an assistant, sources confirmed to CBS Sports. Hammock becomes the latest FBS head coach to depart his role in the ever-changing landscape of college football for a job in the NFL.
The move comes at an awkward time for the program as Northern Illinois is in the midst of a move from the MAC to the Mountain West, where it is set to begin its first season as a member. That transition represents a significant competitive and operational shift for the Huskies, who will be tasked with adapting to longer travel, deeper conference competition and increased recruiting demands.
Hammock has served as Huskies head coach since 2019. While Northern Illinois is coming off a 3‑9 finish in 2025, Hammock led the team to winning records three of the last five years and helped reestablish the Huskies as a consistent bowl participant. Under his leadership, Northern Illinois reached bowl games in 2021, 2023 and 2024, often exceeding pre-season expectations despite operating with a smaller budget than many of its opponents.
Hammock also guided the Huskies to a MAC championship in 2021, one of the high points of the program’s recent history. His most notable victory came in September 2024, when Northern Illinois defeated No. 5 Notre Dame — a win often labeled an “upset” that Hammock rejected.
“If you go back and watch the game and put blank jerseys on both teams, you’d say it was a tremendous physical affair of teams going back and forth, and you can’t tell which one has $20 million and which one don’t,” Hammock told CBS Sports’ Chris Hummer.
That win was Notre Dame’s only loss of that season before it eventually reached the College Football Playoff National Championship Game.
Before Northern Illinois, Hammock spent five seasons in the NFL as a running backs coach with the Baltimore Ravens. He began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at Wisconsin in 2003‑04, then returned to his alma mater to coach running backs from 2005‑06. Hammock spent four seasons at Minnesota from 2007‑10 in various roles before returning to Wisconsin as assistant head coach and running backs coach from 2011‑13, building a reputation for developing productive running backs and disciplined offenses.
Hammock’s tenure at Northern Illinois was also defined by his outspoken commentary on the state of college football. In August 2025, shortly after the NCAA further loosened restrictions on transfers and the growing influence of NIL and revenue-sharing deals, Hammock criticized the effect on programs outside the Power Five.
“Everyone’s talking about everything else besides the most important thing of going to college,” Hammock said at the time. “Because if you’re going to college to get a couple of dollars, you might as well go get a job. This is too hard to go get a couple of dollars. Learn the lessons that you need to learn to be successful in life for the next 40 or 50 years of your life. I would do it again for free because of the things I learned. That’s why I’m standing here today, because of what I learned in college. Not because of how much someone gave me.”
Hammock’s philosophy centered on building a sustainable program through recruiting high school talent and developing depth internally, rather than chasing transfers from larger programs. That approach allowed younger players to emerge late in the season and helped Northern Illinois sign two four-star recruits in 2025, a rarity for a Group of Six program.
Navigating a move to the Mountain West Conference
Northern Illinois is set to join the Mountain West in 2026, ending a tenure in the MAC that dates back to 1997. They’ll join UTEP, Air Force, Hawai’i, Nevada, New Mexico, San Jose State, UNLV, Wyoming and North Dakota State — which recently made the jump from the FCS — in the new-look conference.
As Northern Illinois prepares for its first season in a new league, the search for Hammock’s successor will be one of the program’s most consequential decisions in recent years. The Huskies must now navigate conference realignment, roster turnover and elevated competition without the coach who has shaped their recent identity and development philosophy.
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