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Homecoming, home cooking: NMU football hosts Davenport after wild 4OT win last year

By Steve Brownlee 6 min read

MARQUETTE -- Saturday afternoon would be the perfect time for the Northern Michigan University football team to get its first win for new head coach Matt Janus.

The Wildcats will not only be at home in the Superior Dome, but it will be their annual Homecoming game to celebrate the return of alumni and the induction of those who are in the 2026 class of the NMU Sports Hall of Fame.

The inductees include former Northern football coach Bernie Anderson, who headed the program from 2006 to 2011, long after his time as a Wildcats wrestler in the mid to late 1970s.

Additionally, former U.S. Olympic Center and National Training Site boxing coach Al Mitchell will be the first person inducted into the new National Training Site Ring of Honor.

That pair along with the other five individuals and a Northern team who are inductees will be honored at halftime of the football game. Their induction is scheduled for tonight on campus.

The Wildcats also have an interesting opponent for Saturday's 1 p.m. game -- the Davenport Panthers from the Grand Rapids area downstate.

The game can be watched on Flo Sports and will be available on radio station WUPT 100.3 FM The Point. Fans can also follow @NMU_Football on Instagram and X for updates leading up to and during the game, or visit the Northern athletics website at nmuwildcats.com and look under the football schedule for links to ticket information, live video, live audio, live statistics and a preview. 

NMU has played Davenport twice a season off and on over the past decade or so as the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference has expanded and shrank several times.

Generally, when playing the Panthers twice, the first game has been nonconference and the second counting in the GLIAC, which is the case with today's game being nonleague. The rematch will be a league game to played in Grand Rapids on Oct. 10.

Last year, though, the Panthers came to Marquette for the Wildcats' Homecoming and knocked off the Wildcats, 35-16, in the midst of Northern's 28-game losing streak.

By the time they had their rematch about a month and a half later, NMU had broken that losing streak and would do more winning down in Grand Rapids on Nov. 8.

That second game became epic, not because Northern won, but by how they won -- 47-45 in four overtimes. It not only snapped NMU's six-game losing streak in the series, but gave the Wildcats their second win in four games at the time.

And there was some foreshadowing of really big things to come. Redshirt freshman running back Noah Dobert ran for 243 yards for the second time last season in the game -- the first time was in Northern's other win, a 42-21 victory at Roosevelt on Oct. 18.

But Dobert didn't get credit for any yards gained on his most important run of the day, the 2-point conversion he successfully ran in that was the NMU offense's only play of overtime No. 4. Like a regular PAT, those yards don't count in official standings, but they certainly count in the win column.

His big day was just a prelude to nearly setting an all-time NCAA Division II record one week later in a 45-11 season-ending victory in the dome over Wayne State. On that day, Dobert rolled up a never-before-seen at NMU 406 yards rushing, missing the all-time D-II record by 19 yards.

That pushed him over the top in setting Northern's all-time season rushing record at 1,656 yards, too.

The Panthers likely will remember last year's 243-yard performance against them, and will probably be intent on trying to stop the Wildcats' star back.

That might open the passing game up for NMU quarterbacks Liam Oczkowski and Duke Shovald, who opened the season with what had become an un-Northern-like 272 yards through the air at Minnesota State-Moorhead.

"If you look at the structure of Davenport ... they are winning games up front," Janus said in an NMU Sports Information news release previewing the game. "That's a team where I can't say enough good things about what their lines are doing, and we have to prepare our guys in the trenches."

More recently, the Wildcats lost last Saturday 56-14 at Division I FCS St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.

While NMU kept pace early -- Wilson Ptacek's first of two touchdown catches kept Northern within 15-7 after one quarter -- the Tommies pulled away with an unanswered 20 points in the second quarter to build a 35-7 lead at halftime.

Ptacek, who TD catches last week were for 30 and 27 yards, finished with three receptions for 60 yards. Dobert rolled up 142 rushing yards in 27 carries, his most productive performance this season.

Dobert now has 333 yards on the ground while averaging 5.2 yards per carry. His 111.0 yards per game ranks No. 2 in the GLIAC.

Oczkowski and Shovald combined to complete 13 of 25 passes for 174 yards, two TDs and one interception.

But the Wildcats continued to have turnover problems, in this game committing four that included three lost fumbles. For the season, NMU has lost the turnover battle, 8-1, throwing four pickoffs and fumbling it away four times, compared to just one interception thrown by opponent QBs.

That interception was made by Jax Hertel against St. Thomas, as he also leads the team with 19 tackles as teammate Logan McGraw has 18 tackles and two pass breakups.

Hertel and Dobert are the returning GLIAC First Team honorees from last season, with Dobert also gaining Second Team All-American status.

A GLIAC Second Teamer who is back this fall is offensive lineman Daniel Babcock, while defensive lineman Jake Price and defensive back Murphy Monreal were league honorable mentions a year ago.

This season, Davenport was chosen fourth in the GLIAC preseason coaches poll, right behind Michigan Tech. The Panthers are 3-0, which includes last Saturday's 19-12 home win over national No. 17 Indianapolis, and has gained DU the No. 24 ranking in the American Football Coaches Association national poll.

In that game, the Panthers jumped out to a 16-0 lead in the first half by rushing for 327 yards, led by Cephus Harris with 120 yards and a TD.

Harris is the player Dobert trails in the GLIAC rushing race, as he averages 197.0 yards per game with 591 yards total.

With all three of their previous games played at home, Davenport opened with a 32-20 win over ex-GLIAC member Gannon of Pennsylvania and a 28-14 victory over Truman State of Missouri.

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

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