While pursued by Michigan Tech’s Chase Koch, left, Northern Michigan University’s Noah Dobert tries to stiff-arm him away from a tackle during their game played at the Superior Dome in Marquette on Oct. 25. (Photo courtesy Cara Kamps) 

MARQUETTE — This is not a situation the football team at Northern Michigan University could’ve envisioned a month ago for its final game of the season — worrying about overconfidence.

Exactly one month ago, the Wildcats were three days away from winning their first game since 2022, still staring a 28-game losing streak in the face.

Now, though, they’ve won two of their last four games following a sudden coaching change that took place a week ago, with associate head coach and offensive coordinator Billy Lindquist elevated into the head coach’s position for the remainder of the season.

While the win that broke the long winless streak was nice, a 42-21 victory at one-win Roosevelt, last Saturday’s was the real stunner — a 47-45 four-overtime victory at then 5-3 Davenport, especially after the Panthers had earlier in the season come to Marquette and spoiled NMU’s homecoming, 35-16.

That doesn’t get into the dramatics of the victory itself, tying the longest game in Northern history when it hit the fourth OT period.

And that didn’t even consider the performance of redshirt freshman running back Noah Dobert, who ran for 243 yards for the second time this season — yes, each time coming in a Wildcats win — to move him into the national conversation in NCAA Division II for rushing yardage, also giving him at least an outside chance of setting NMU’s program record for rushing yards in a season.

Dobert scored four touchdowns on the ground Saturday, one each in the first and second quarters, then later in the first and second overtimes. Finally, he walked off the victory when he plunged across the goal line in overtime No. 4, since starting in the third OT, the NCAA format is a series of 2-point conversion tries.

With 1,250 yards already and two games of well over 200 yards, Dobert now needs 255 yards to tie the Northern rushing season record set by Jake Mayon in 2018 of 1,505 yards.

A tall task? Yes, indeed, but maybe possible considering who’s coming to town this weekend — winless Wayne State. Game time is 1 p.m. Saturday at the Superior Dome.

That gets back to the possibility of overconfidence.

“We gotta go out and do our process Monday through Friday, and worry about ourselves, do what we need to do to get better, to make the corrections from last week, and go out there and just play our football,” Lindquist said in an NMU Sports Information news release previewing the game. “It’s how we play, not who we play, and I think our guys have really bought into that.”

Wayne State has earned its 0-10 record in a way similar to how the Wildcats did it the previous two seasons — mixing in a couple close games with a bunch of blowouts, not hard to do with multiple national powerhouses residing in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

The Warriors — who in the 20th century were known as the Tartars — lost 7-3 at Findlay and 31-22 at Wisconsin-La Cross early in the season. But WSU was also tagged with losses of 59-0 at No. 1 Ferris State, 59-13 at No. 25 Grand Valley State, and maybe the worst one, 48-14 at now two-win Roosevelt just last week.

In many ways, NMU and Wayne State are more similar than they are different. Scoring-wise, Northern is sixth and Wayne State eighth in the GLIAC, though the Wildcats average more than twice as many points a game, 25.1 to 11.8.

But their scoring defenses are ranked sixth for the Warriors and seventh for the Wildcats, less than a quarter point apart, 39.4 for WSU and 39.6 for Northern.

Yardage-wise, the two teams are at the bottom of the league, NMU seventh and Wayne State eighth, though the Wildcats are well over 100 yards better per game, 350.6 to 212.4.

Defensively in yards, Northern is sixth at 396.4 and the Warriors seventh at 424.3, about a 30-yard difference.

In some off-the-beaten-path statistics, these teams look good.

NMU is called for the fewest penalties and penalty yards per game in the GLIAC, 5.3 penalties and 44.0 yards, while Wayne State’s opponents are called for the most penalties and yards per game, 7.5 penalties and 75.7 yards.

The Wildcats, Wayne State and Roosevelt are tied for the best point-after-touchdown success rate, each at a full 100%, though NMU gets listed at the top with that success on more attempts, 28.

And Northern has a huge time of possession edge over the rest of the GLIAC, holding the ball for 35:15 every game. Michigan Tech is second at 31:38, with almost as wide a gap between those two Upper Peninsula rivals as there is between the Huskies and last-place Davenport’s 27:50.

Saturday’s game will be Senior Day to honor 13 seniors — Chris Bornhoeft, Chance Bridgers, Jacquille Brown, Jeremiah Gossett, Jaylen Houston, Michael Karlen, Thomas Kellen, Mitch Larkin, Trevor Leigh, Jhermari Mabry, Max Mouranie, Brady Redmer and Tim Shannon Jr.

The game will be broadcast on Marquette radio station WUPT 100.3 FM The Point, while fans can follow @NMU_Football and @NMU_Wildcats on X (formerly Twitter) for updates leading up to and during the game.

Or visit the NMU athletics website at nmuwildcats.com and look under the football schedule for ticket information, live video, live audio, live statistics and a preview.

Lindquist’s memorable first victory was done in traditional Wildcats’ fashion — grind the ball out on the ground. Despite Dobert’s huge day, other Northern runners also accumulated more than 100 yards rushing to give the team a total of 344 yards to just 161 for Davenport, though their rushing attempts were also about 2-1 in favor of NMU.

Marquette Senior High School graduate Tucker Welch was the No. 2 rusher with 47 yards, while quarterback Trevor Theuerkauf, a Menominee product, had 28 yards.

Northern was outgained through the air, 185-32, with Theuerkauf going just 2 of 5 with an interception.

On defense, Murphy Monreal became the first Wildcat to snag his second interception this season, as he also leads the team in turnovers with three that includes a fumble recovery.

Monreal’s pickoff led to an 80-yard TD drive in the third quarter that gave NMU its only two-score lead of the day, 28-14. The Wildcats never trailed until the second OT, when Davenport had the ball first before Northern eventually retied it.

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