This is a collage showing the three Northern Michigan University football players who won GLIAC weekly awards on Monday, Nov. 17, 2025. From left are Offensive Player of the Week Noah Dobert, Defensive Player of the Week Jeremiah Gossett and Special Teams Player of the Week Michael Karlen. (Photo illustration courtesy NMU)

MARQUETTE — It might have been unthinkable a month ago, and maybe not thought possible even two weeks ago, but now the football team at Northern Michigan University has swept all the conference weekly awards after its season-ending 45-11 win over Wayne State on Saturday in the Superior Dome.

Redshirt freshman running back Noah Dobert starred with a historic NCAA Division II 406 yards rushing, including four touchdown runs of at least 50 yards, putting himself in the all-time top-five nationally for a single game and rewriting the rushing part of the Wildcats’ record book.

Not too surprisingly, he was named the Offensive Player of the Week in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

But he was also joined by senior defensive back Jeremiah Gossett as GLIAC Defensive Player of the Week and senior kicker Michael Karlen as Special Teams Player of the Week.

This was the first time in recent history that Northern has swept all three major conference honors in football in one week, according to an NMU Sports Information news release about the awards.

In the rough-and-tumble GLIAC, where generally at least two and sometimes as many as four teams have been nationally ranked simultaneously, NMU finished 3-8 overall and 2-5 in the conference, even as all three of its wins were over league teams.

That’s because the middle win over Davenport about 10 days ago was considered nonconference, as it was their second meeting after the Panthers prevailed at NMU’s homecoming in mid-September.

That’s the kind of season the Wildcats have had — going from a 28-game losing streak that lasted until exactly one month ago today on Oct. 18, the day of a historic 42-21 win at Roosevelt, when Northern rolled up a program-record 538 yards rushing.

It went onto third-year head coach Shane Richardson resigning a day before the team’s second win on Nov. 8, a program-record-tying longest game, a four-overtime 47-45 triumph at Davenport. Then it culminated in interim head coach Billy Lindquist earning his second straight triumph over winless Wayne State on Saturday.

Dobert, at 5-foot-11 and 197 pounds, was the centerpiece with a performance that missed the all-time Division II rushing record by just 19 yards and shattered multiple NMU standards in the process.

His yardage in the game beat the old Wildcats record by nearly a hundred yards, that being 317 yards by Mark Bossuah in 2007.

Dobert’s season total of 1,656 yards eclipsed by more than 150 yards the mark set by All-American Jake Mayon in 2018 of 1,505 yards. And the Dearborn native’s rushing TD total of 15 beat out Mayon’s old season mark of 14.

Dobert led Northern to its best-ever team rushing total of 3,123 yards — Dobert still had more than half those yards — far exceeding the old record of 2,660 in Mayon’s record season of 2018.

In the NCAA this season, Dobert’s season totals were third in overall yards and also third in yards per game with 150.5.

Gossett, 5-10 and 170, had a remarkable day, too, vs. Wayne State, making two interceptions. The first by the El Mirage, Arizona, native came with time running down in the first half and the Warriors driving inside the NMU 30 as he picked off the pass at his own 6-yard-line.

It kept the score a more comfortable 21-3 at halftime.

The second came in the final six minutes, again in Northern territory, and kept the Warriors from scoring twice back to back that could have dampened the Wildcats’ dominant day.

On his Senior Day, Gossett closed out an NMU career that also included two fumble recoveries and 10 pass breakups.

Karlen, at 6-2 and 215, finished off a sparkling Northern career as a kicker. Going 6 for 6 on Saturday capped off a 58-of-59 career on extra points, while the Stanley, Wisconsin, native hit his fifth field goal of the season, a 41-yarder, out of seven tries.

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.