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Northern Illinois

Huskies · Mountain West

Head coach Thomas Hammock Year 7 with Northern Illinois

Season Projection · 2026 W0

10,000 sims
3.7
Expected wins
4-7
Proj record
1 to 7
Win range (90%)
#124 (107–135)
Final rank (90%)
0%
Make playoff
0%
Win conference

Path to Glory

Tap a win or a loss on each pivotal game to see how the playoff probability shifts. Leave any game unset to average across both outcomes.

Make the playoff

0%

Baseline projection.

  • at Georgia State
    Away · Sep 26
  • vs Air Force
    Home · Oct 10
  • at Wyoming
    Away · Oct 17
  • vs Hawai'i
    Home · Oct 24

Pivotal games are the 5 with the largest playoff-probability swing, ranked by the model. Math: chained Bayesian log-odds update from the conditional simulation set; gets the directionally right answer but won't perfectly capture cross-game correlations until the full Monte Carlo pipeline lands.

Returning production · 2025

47 PCI
  • Quarterback 40% (2/5 players)
  • Offensive line 57% (12/21 players)
  • Skill (RB/WR/TE) 45% (14/31 players)
  • Front 7 (DL/LB) 58% (19/33 players)
  • Secondary 42% (10/24 players)
  • Special teams 29% (2/7 players)

PCI weights returning production by position group (QB/OL heaviest). 70%+ is healthy continuity; 45-70% is a normal rebuild; below 45% is a meaningful turnover.

If QB1 is out (Josh Holst)

GIE projects a 8.3 rating drop and a 33.0pp shift in playoff probability if Northern Illinois loses its QB1 for an extended stretch. (n=5 historical samples; pooled across recent seasons.)

Situational efficiency · 2025

FBS percentile rank
  • 3rd-down conversion 30.8% 17th — bottom tier
  • Red-zone TD rate 11.2% 22th — bottom tier
  • 4th-down aggression 44.2% 83th — strong
  • Late & close 3.5 yds/play 19th — bottom tier

Percentile is across all FBS teams with play-by-play data for the season. "Late & close" is yards per play in Q4+ with a one-score margin — a proxy for clutch offensive performance.

Schedule

Full 2026 slate. Tap a row for the matchup breakdown.

Latest Stories

  • Recap

    Northern Illinois: 2025 Week 16 recap

    Northern Illinois sits at 3–9 after dropping a close one to Kent State 35–31 at home in Week 14. The Huskies, rated at –16.7 by GIE and ranked 128th nationally, have struggled to find consistent footing this season. That loss to a…

More coming

Per-team pages get the full treatment in Phase 3: current rating, season projection histogram, schedule with win probabilities, and live overlays on Pylon stream days. For now, this page exists so stories and news have a permanent home as content rolls in.