MUNCIE, Ind. – As NIU football head coach Thomas Hammock emerged from the visiting locker room at Scheumann Stadium, he hung his head low with his hands at his hips.
Minutes earlier, he watched as his Huskies suffered yet another heartbreaking defeat to archrival Ball State University on Saturday. With five seconds left in regulation, Cardinals sophomore kicker Jackson Courville knocked in the game-winning 52-yard field goal to play the hero against NIU for the second-straight season.
“Obviously a tough loss – one that falls squarely on my shoulders,” Hammock said. ”I’ve got to do a better job of getting our team ready to play and ready to execute in all situations, and we’ll get better from this.”
Courville’s heroics negated senior kicker Kanon Woodill’s 47-yard field goal to grant NIU its first lead of the game with 15 seconds to go.
The Huskies produced 374 yards of offense, while the defense had its worst performance of the season. NIU gave up 392 yards of total offense to the Cardinals.
“We were pretty awful out there,” redshirt junior defensive tackle Skyler Gill-Howard said. “We gave up 400 yards, and we haven’t done that all season. We’ve just got to do a better job of staying consistent, because run or the pass, they were getting anything they wanted out there. We weren’t executing the way we usually do.”
The Huskies especially struggled to contain junior tight end Tanner Koziol, a player who had three career touchdowns against NIU going in. Koziol was the Cardinals’ leading receiver with eight catches for 69 yards and two touchdowns.
The 6-foot-7 tight end corralled his first touchdown on Ball State’s opening possession on a goal-line fade from redshirt freshman quarterback Kadin Semonza.
NIU responded three possessions later with senior running back Antario Brown’s first touchdown since his two-touchdown performance against the University at Buffalo on Sept. 14. Brown cut through an opening on the right side, spun around Ball State freshman defensive back Eric McClain and glided the rest of the way for the 34-yard score.
The Cardinals went on to score 12 unanswered points with two field goals and Koziol’s second touchdown grab. Courville connected on his first attempt of the day from 24 yards. On NIU’s responding drive, redshirt freshman quarterback Josh Holst was intercepted by graduate student defensive back George Udo, who made an incredible catch while keeping his feet in-bounds.
Redshirt junior Ethan Hampton replaced Holst at quarterback on NIU’s next drive. Hammock said the decision to rotate came down to game experience.
“When it became a throw game, we thought Ethan, with his experience, gave us a little better chance to move the ball down the field,” Hammock said.
The Huskies did just that with a 30-second touchdown drive finished off by redshirt sophomore wide receiver Cam Thompson’s longest touchdown reception. Hampton found Thompson deep down the middle for a 54-yard touchdown pass, cutting NIU’s deficit to five.
“I gave him (the safety) a little move and I took it inside, and it was just open,” Thompson said.
Neither team got on the board in the third quarter – Ball State’s first scoreless period of the season – as the Cardinals burned most of the clock with a fruitless 16-play, 60-yard drive that lasted 10:05.
Ball State added another field goal early in the fourth quarter as Courville converted his first-career 50-yard field goal.
Brown plowed into the end zone on a 6-yard carry to record his second two-touchdown day of 2024. On the ensuing 2-point conversion attempt, Hampton found his favorite receiver Thompson in the back of the end zone. However, Thompson dropped the pass at the last moment as NIU failed to convert – two lost points that ultimately played the difference.
“There’s no excuse for that,” Thompson said. “I just shouldn’t have tried to body-catch it.”
After a Hampton interception set the Cardinals up deep in NIU territory, Courville’s field goal attempt to create a touchdown margin was blocked. Redshirt freshman safety Santana Banner leaped in the air to get a hand on the ball, causing it to fall short of the uprights. NIU then marched 50 yards down the field, setting up Woodill’s go-ahead kick.
“We definitely thought we had it, man,” Brown said. “We knew we were still in it. We knew Kanon (Woodill) would give us a good shot.”
But NIU’s good fortunes quickly dissipated. On the first play of Ball State’s desperation drive, Semonza heaved a deep pass down the left sideline. Cardinals senior wide receiver Malcolm Gillie came down with the reception over NIU redshirt sophomore cornerback Jacob Finley to put Ball State at the NIU 40. Two plays later, Courville made his second career-long attempt, making it from 52 yards to play the hero against NIU for the second-straight season.
With the loss, NIU drops to 4-4 on the season and 1-3 in Mid-American Conference play. Hammock didn’t mince words: NIU’s MAC Championships aspirations are dead. Instead, the Huskies will look to earn the two wins needed to become bowl eligible and give their seniors a little more time in their college careers.
“The MAC Championship is over,” Hammock said. “There’s a lot of teams with minimal losses. What we have to do is be able to play for these seniors and try to extend the season for our seniors. And that’s got to be our focus.”
