College football transfer portal: Assessing Northern Illinois football in the open portal window
The transfer portal has become one of the biggest stories in college football.
Here’s a look at how the Northern Illinois Huskies fared in the open transfer portal window at the start of January.
Northern Illinois Football in the transfer portal
Incoming Players: 17 transfers
Outgoing Players: 19 transfers
NIU has a strategy that was pretty evident last offseason and was repeated this January.
Thomas Hammock and the Huskies target players from lower levels of football with the idea that they would supplement the high school recruits with transfers, instead of using the portal to add immediate starters.
NIU has to hope that it lends itself to success as it jumps from the MAC to the Mountain West Conference.
The most notable trend is the Huskies' addition of seven defensive backs from the portal. Morehouse College safety Tyrese Stanley, Marian University cornerback Yassine Falke, Bryant cornerback Liam Lindo and Lafayette College safety Avery Jones were all rated as three-star prospects in 247Sports' transfer portal rankings.
Beyond that, 13 of the 17 incoming transfer players are defensive players. Edge rushers Mathias Smith-Davis and James Bradley bring playing experience to one of the most important positions on the defensive line, as pass-rushing help is never a bad addition. Smith-Davis played for Division II Central State University and recorded 10 sacks and 14 tackles for loss in his freshman season there. Bradley, playing at FCS Mississippi Valley State, had two sacks for the Delta Devils.
The only transfer the Huskies signed from the FBS level, and that's Mississippi State transfer wide receiver Cam Thompson.
Thompson will be one of the receivers that NIU will hope jells with its quarterback room. Hammock has also brought in Ean Hamric to its quarterback room, joining Brady Davidson and Jalen Macon as Josh Holst and Jackson Proctor transferred out.
Big picture view:
Hammock stuck to his guns. This was a telling offseason for NIU, as it's taking a step forward in a new-look Mountain West. Boise State, Fresno State, San Diego State, Utah State and Colorado State will depart for the new-look Pac-12.
The MWC now features UNLV, UTEP, New Mexico and Hawaii. Hawaii, UNLV and New Mexico all had nine wins or more in 2025.
NIU could have made massive swings to try and find success in Year one in the MWC. Instead, the Huskies are trusting in their program to develop players to a point where they'll be competitive.
The case in point is the quarterback position. Hamric has familiarity with second-year offensive coordinator Quinn Sanders' offense, but Davidson and Macon have experience starting games for NIU this season. Instead of targeting a transfer portal quarterback with starting experience above those three, NIU will have a quarterback competition to see who will start in 2026. That's a sign the staff is putting its trust in its own abilities to develop talent.
The staff needs to follow through on that after a 3-9 season, which fell short of the program's lofty goals of winning a MAC title as it exits the conference.
With a portal class like the one NIU just recruited, the onus now lies on the coaching staff.
To be clear, that's where the staff wants the bottom line to be anyway.
What they're saying:
"To be honest with you, I love the challenge," Hammock said on August 13, 2025. "It don't bother me one bit. Because you know what, in life, you are going to make decisions. Sometimes it is going to work in your favor and sometimes it is not. "I told our team the other day, you know we lost all these guys, 'Let's see who plays.' 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 gonna play, or travel, or get snaps?"