Head football coach Shane Richardson resigned his position, effective immediately, the university said in separate emails sent three minutes apart early Friday afternoon. One email was sent by NMU Chief Marketing Officer Derek Hall and the other by NMU Sports Information, though the statements were word-for-word exactly the same.

The actual announcement of Richardson’s resignation was made by Northern athletic director Rick Comley on Friday morning.

“We are committed to achieving standards consistent with our focus on the success of each of our student athletes,” Comley said in the emails. “The search for a new head coach will begin immediately.”

It added that the university won’t share details about the resignation “due to the privacy of personnel matters,” according to Friday’s release.

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Meanwhile, the other coach who had also been placed on administrative leave, position coach for the offensive line Joe Gatz, will be fully reinstated on Monday, thus being available to coach as the Wildcats prepare for their final regular season game at 1 p.m. next Saturday in the Superior Dome against winless Wayne State.

Hall sent an email to The Mining Journal early Tuesday announcing that Richardson and Gatz had been placed on administrative leave, with no disclosure of the reasons for the move nor how long the administrative leave would last.

Also at that time, it was announced that associate head coach and offensive coordinator William “Billy” Lindquist would serve as interim head coach for today’s noon game vs. Davenport to be played in Grand Rapids.

Friday’s announcement extends Lindquist’s interim tag through the end of this season.

Today’s game is Northern’s second game this season against Davenport, like NMU a member of the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. It will be broadcast on Marquette radio station WUPT 100.3 FM The Point.

Shane Richardson Mug for Page B1

This game is considered nonconference after their first encounter, a 35-16 victory posted by the Panthers at the Superior Dome on Sept. 20, counted in the league.

The Wildcats enter today’s game at 1-8 overall and 1-5 in the GLIAC, their lone win a 42-21 triumph over Roosevelt in suburban Chicago three weeks ago that ended a 28-game losing streak that commenced with the beginning of Richardson’s tenure that opened the 2023 season.

Davenport sports 5-3 overall and 4-2 GLIAC records, last week defeating Saginaw Valley State 31-17 to hand the Cardinals their first loss in the league this season.

Despite their struggles, in the GLIAC standings NMU sits ahead of two 0-5 teams, Roosevelt and Wayne State.

In fact, while Roosevelt entered its game vs. Northern win a nonconference victory, Wayne State remains winless at 0-9 with a date at Roosevelt this afternoon.

Overall, Richardson finished with a 1-30 record, an .032 winning percentage.

But his teams showed signs of improvement after his first season, when the Wildcats gave up 60 or more points four times, including twice when opponents broke the 70-point barrier.

In 2024, NMU took Roosevelt to overtime in the Superior Dome before losing 16-10 while only giving up 60 points once.

This season, Northern opened with a pair of one-score losses, 44-37 to Minnesota State-Moorhead and 23-18 at Northwood, then a two-score setback, 20-7 to NCAA Division I St. Thomas.

The sledding got tougher after the Wildcats reached the GLIAC schedule, though even a 70-35 loss at national No. 1 Ferris State one week ago showed some glimmer of hope as the Wildcats scored more points on the Bulldogs than any of its other opponents had this season.

Even the 70 points allowed weren’t that many more than the almost 54 points per game FSU averages.

Richardson, 47, played for the Wildcats from 1996 to 2000, winning several team awards, and graduated from Northern with a bachelor’s degree in 2001.

He came to NMU not long after completing eight years as a head coach at another Division II school, the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. He had been at that school in several coaching capacities since the founding of its football program in 2006.

Richardson had also been linebackers coach at NMU in 2002 and at Jamestown State (North Dakota) in 2003, then defensive backs coach at North Dakota State in 2004.

Story contents based on a Northern Michigan University Sports Information press release

making the announcement. Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee’s email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.