This past Saturday the men’s football team traveled to Big Rapids, MI to take on No.1 Ferris State hoping to get the first win of the season. Unfortunately, the Wildcats were not able to get the win with 3-78 as the final score. Trying to move away from the loss, the team is gearing up to head down to Grand Rapids, MI where they will play against Davenport.

“I think they are a big, strong, athletic team that’s having success that’s going to present challenges,” Head Coach Shane Richardson said. “It’s an opportunity for our guys to be able to take that scenario, go right back into it, and respond to what we did or did not do last weekend and try to use that as motivation for going into Davenport’s week.”

In the wake of the loss against Ferris State, the team was able to see where they are at right now and how they want to change things for the rest of the season, still searching for their first win under Richardson. Looking ahead to Davenport, another team ranked in the top 25 in the nation, NMU will be searching for players to step up and show they are able to play with the best teams in the GLIAC.

“The best thing that we can do is that we got experience in something like that, and sometimes you have to fail in order to do it better,” Richardson said. “I think, honestly, the clear lens right now on us is just knowing that we’ve got a lot to work on and we are in a place where we’ve got to shift our mentality and be in a place where we can go against an opponent that is noted as having accolades and a team that has success.”

One of the team’s biggest takeaways from the season thus far is having a lot of young players on the team and helping them ease into playing college football, and the challenges that come along with that. The transition to a new head coach with a different style takes time for everything to mesh and with each week, coach Richardson sees some improvement in the team.

Richardson has been searching for a way for them to put everything together and secure a win over No.16 Davenport on the road this Saturday, Oct 7 at 2 p.m.

“I mean, obviously the results that we got on Saturday were an indicator of where we’re at as a program, and we got to be able to look that in the eye,” Richardson said. “[We have] got to be able to take ownership in it and be able to … take it for what it is, and be able to try to get better as a result of it.”