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Last December, after a long day of player meetings and bowl preparations, Thomas Hammock began to drive home with a terrible realization.
He’s leaving.
He is Antario Brown, the Northern Illinois all-conference running back who’d fielded enough high-dollar offers that he met with Hammock earlier that day and informed the Huskies’ head coach he would be transferring to one of those power conference suitors.
This is a reality nowadays for many Group of Five football coaches: recruit an undervalued high school prospect, spend years developing him into an elite player and then see him leave for a bigger payday.
But this story, unlike many of the rest, ends differently.
Within a few minutes of Hammock arriving home that December day, Brown called with a change of heart: “I’m going to stay,” he told the coach.
Hammock, in his sixth year leading the NIU football program, tells the story as a way to provide a window into life in the G5, where retaining your best players is a constant battle against those with deeper pockets. He retraces the tale less than 48 hours after his Huskies thundered into Notre Dame Stadium for a 16-14 victory as four-touchdown underdogs — a game in which Brown was responsible for nearly 60% of NIU’s offensive yards.
Northern Illinois Huskies pose for photos after defeating the Notre Dame Fighting Irish 16-14 at Notre Dame Stadium. (Matt Cashore-Imagn Images)
In this transformative era of college athletics, the game is a reminder that the resource and recruiting gap between the haves and have-nots — perhaps as large as it’s ever been and growing — is not always an indicator of on-field results.
The lesson: Retain your best players and it’s possible for David to, every once in a while, smack Goliath.
The reality: Retaining your best players is becoming more and more difficult.
In fact,…
Source link : https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/nius-win-over-notre-dame-gave-g5-schools-glimmer-of-hope-but-college-footballs-evolution-may-force-more-abrupt-changes-190544340.html
Author : Yahoo Sports
Publish date : 2024-09-10 19:05:44
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