NMU was hoping to bring home the Miner’s Cup this year as they traveled to Houghton to face off against the Huskies this past Saturday, Oct. 15. They fell short as Michigan Tech put together a 21-7 win over the Wildcats. The Cats never seemed to get it going as the team was unable to score until early in the fourth quarter.

“The offensive could not get on its feet at all,” Coach Kyle Nystrom said. “We practice normally, we practice hard. We had good preparation. I think we were probably a little too conservative on offense.”

NMU’s dual quarterback set of Drake Davis and Zack Keen combined for 18-31 for 173 yards in the game. After a huge return by NMU, running back Tyshon King set up a two-yard rushing touchdown early in the fourth quarter and made the score 21-7 with 11:57 left in the game.

The ‘Cats got the ball back and started to drive when QB Davis threw an interception, and the Huskies were able to finish out the game to win the Miners Cup.

“Grade them every day and you start that player. You keep them in there if they’re moving the ball and they’re playing well,” Nystrom said. “Last week, nobody played well.”

With both QBs playing minutes in the game, NMU will be continuously looking at the quarterback situation as the season continues to unfold. The offensive unit was stagnant for most of the game and took responsibility for the lack of execution.

“We get into a team meeting on Sunday, and you’re going to hash it out … the first thing that happens is a player stands up in a team meeting and says he apologizes because the offense let us down and that won’t happen again,” Nystrom said. “I’ve never seen a football team do that in all my years of coaching.”

NMU will be looking to get back on track next weekend on Saturday, Oct. 22 as they travel to Allendale, MI to face off against Grand Valley State in a matchup against the No.1 team in the country.

“I think they already are in that mode,” Nystrom said. “Maybe you got to prove yourself as a football player again after last week.”

Nystroms hopes the team understood where they had fallen short in the match up against the Huskies last weekend and will be looking ahead to the marquee matchup against GVST. The team might be getting some reinforcements against the Lakers as NMU was down two of their starting safeties against Tech.

“We got a great opportunity to go down and play the number one team in the country,” Nystrom said. “Now you have to have everything hitting on 100%. You can’t make a bad step.”