Northern Michigan University’s Jax Hertel, center, is celebrated by teammates Xavier Martinez, left, and Jaylen Houston on his way to scoring a long touchdown in the first quarter of a college football game played against Minnesota State-Moorhead at the Superior Dome in Marquette on Aug. 28. (Photo courtesy of Cara Kamps)

MARQUETTE — As far as suspense goes, there probably wasn’t much when it came to one football player from Northern Michigan University earning some kind of postseason honor from the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

The real question for redshirt freshman running back Noah Dobert was how high in the awards would he go.

That’s especially true considering the league includes the No. 1 team in the country, undefeated and defending national champion Ferris State, which would in all likelihood hog a lot of the honors.

But Dobert was still awarded the GLIAC Offensive Back of the Year, one of seven major awards in the conference with four of them claimed by Ferris.

His remarkable first real year collegiately — in 2024 as a true freshman, he carried the ball three times for 12 yards — has generated a lot of interest and accolades, this being the latest.

Dobert rushed for at least 243 yards in each of the Wildcats’ wins, including a NCAA Division II high this season of 406 yards in the finale vs. Wayne State in the Superior Dome barely a week ago.

That game’s yardage was an NMU record, as was his season total of 1,656 yards, along with his 15 rushing touchdowns.

Dobert didn’t just set those records, but blasted through them with his 406 yards nearly a hundred yards better than the previous NMU mark and his season total exceeding the old record by more than 150 yards.

And that Wayne State game total ranks top-five all-time in Division II, missing the record by just 19 yards.

He of course earned a spot on the GLIAC First Team as a back after winning three conference Player of the Week awards during the season and also the D2Football.com website’s National Offensive Player of the Week about seven days ago.

All of this was for a team that was saddled with a 28-game losing streak until Dobert gained 243 yards and fellow back Jahi Wood 233 yards in Northern’s 42-21 win at Roosevelt on Oct. 18.

The team’s 538 yards rushing that day obliterated the old single-game record by more than 60 yards, while the Wildcats’ season total of 3,123 yards on the ground smashed that mark by more than 450 yards.

Dobert helped NMU win three times in its last five games after not having won since 2022. His 150.5 yards-per-game average ranks No. 3 in all of Division II this fall.

He makes a good starting point for eight of his teammates also earning All-GLIAC honors on the First Team, Second Team and Honorable Mention. They are Jax Hertel, Wood, Chris Bornhoeft, Daniel Babcock, Mitch Larkin, Jake Price, Xavier Martinez and Murphy Monreal.

Joining Dobert on the GLIAC First Team is Hertel, a junior linebacker who not only led Northern with 101 tackles, but was No. 3 in the conference. And his 14 1/2 tackles for loss led the league.

He also added a pick-six — the current term for an interception returned for a TD — a forced fumble, three quarterback hits and six pass breakups.

Wood was among four Wildcats on the Second Team. This sophomore only played in eight of the team’s 11 games, but accumulated enough yards for his honor — 604 yards to be exact, ranked sixth in the GLIAC with his raw total and fourth in yards per game with 75.5. He was also No. 6 in the league in rushing TDs with seven, getting two of them in the record-breaking performance vs. Roosevelt.

Bornhoeft, a 6-foot-3, 305-pound senior offensive lineman, helped anchor a line that set the team rushing records. A starter 10 times, he led Northern to No. 2 in the GLIAC and No. 7 in the nation with 283.9 rushing yards per game.

Babcock, 6-4, 295, is a junior O-lineman who also started 10 games and earned the same kind of recognition as Bornhoeft.

Larkin, a senior linebacker, was second to Hertel in Wildcats’ tackles with 85, also No. 5 in the conference. He had 6 1/2 tackles for loss and two pass breakups while starting all 11 games. He moved up from GLIAC Honorable Mention the past two seasons.

The three Honorable Mentions from NMU are all defenders. Monreal, a redshirt freshman back who played in 10 games, tied for the team high with two interceptions that also tied for seventh in the GLIAC, and was third on the NMU defense with 49 tackles.

Junior lineman Price recorded 35 tackles while playing all 11 games, tying for the league best with five sacks, adding in a team-high 10 QB hits.

And Martinez, a sophomore D-back, played in 10 games while totaling 22 tackles, a forced fumble and five pass breakups.

Despite the powerhouse presence of Ferris State, it was Saginaw Valley State QB Mason McKenzie who won the GLIAC Player of the Year, following up his Freshman of the Year honor a season ago.

He threw for 2,086 yards and rushed for another 942, topping the league with 275.3 yards per game total and ranking 22nd in Division II. He also had 27 TDs, including 17 passing, getting at least one in 10 of 11 games.

The other non-Bulldog winner was Michigan Tech’s Dan Mettlach as Coach of the Year. The Gwinn High School graduate who once played for MTU, he was in his third year as Tech head coach and led the Huskies to a second straight 7-4 record. Tech broke into the national top 25 in Week 2, the first time since November 2015, and won the Miner’s Cup over NMU for the 15th straight time.

From Ferris, senior Tim Anderson is Offensive Lineman of the Year, leading the Bulldogs offense as No. 1 nationally in averages in scoring at 52.7 points and yardage at 515.4 per game.

FSU senior Kailib Davis is Defensive Lineman of the Year in his first year as a fulltime starter. He has seven tackles for loss and five sacks.

And Bulldogs senior Justin Payoute is Defensive Back of the Year for his five interceptions, a forced fumble and fumble recovery, along with 24 solo tackles among 46 total. He had two TDs, one each on a pickoff and fumble.

Ferris led the league with 11 First Team selections, SVSU with seven Second Team picks, and coincidentally, each of the other seven teams in the conference had five Honorable Mentions.

Story contents based on Northern Michigan University Sports Information press release reviewing the awards. Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee’s email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.