The question wasn't whether Notre Dame football would fail to meet expectations this season, but when. Surprisingly the answer came in Week 2, as the Northern Illinois Huskies pulled off the biggest win in school history with Saturday's 16-14 upset of the No. 5 Fighting Irish in South Bend.
After opening the season on the road with a 23-13 win over Texas A&M, Notre Dame was supposed to have an easier task this weekend. The Fighting Irish were a 28-point favorite against Northern Illinois, and history wasn't on the underdogs' side. In 51 tries, a Mid-American Conference team had never beaten a top-five opponent. Still, the Huskies refused to be pushed over.
The Irish scored a touchdown on the opening possession but didn't add any more points in the first half. Northern Illinois blocked Mitch Jeter's 48-yard field goal attempt right before halftime, holding onto a 13-7 lead after two quarters. Notre Dame's second-half adjustments led to an impressive touchdown run by Jeremiyah Love in the third quarter, but quarterback Riley Leonard continued to struggle and threw a brutal interception to Amariyun Knighten with about six minutes left in the game. Off the turnover, the Huskies engineered a drive that concluded with Kanon Woodill's 35-yard field goal to take the lead with 31 seconds remaining. (There was a rather questionable officiating decision on that NIU drive, in which an obvious first-down run instead was ruled as fourth down, although ultimately it didn't matter.) Jeter attempted a 62-yard kick as time expired, but it was blocked by Cade Haberman, and the Fighting Irish completed a faceplant for the ages.
Notre Dame's ignominy is Northern Illinois's jubilation. Huskies head coach Thomas Hammock has seen a lot since he took the job in 2019, including a winless COVID season with an extremely young team, a MAC championship in 2021, and two bowl appearances. But there hadn't been a win this big in the program's history, and in the postgame interview, the former running back for NIU started to weep. "I told [the team] all week, 'We don't need luck. We just gotta be our best,'" Hammock said. "And they was their best today."
For playing the role of ostensible punching bag in a prestigious school's home opener, Northern Illinois will be paid $1.4 million. This was supposed to be one of the easy games for Notre Dame! The potential choke was supposed to happen later in the year against Louisville or USC. Instead, the Fighting Irish were outplayed by a damn MAC team in their own stadium, and then booed by their own fans. If any team needs luck, it's these bozos.
