Michigan Tech quarterback Alex Fries throws to a teammate during a game against Wayne State on Saturday, Oct. 5, at Kearly Stadium in Houghton. (David Archambeau/For the Gazette)

HOUGHTON — With the Ferris State Bulldogs football team’s blowout of Valdosta State for the NCAA Division II title, the season has finally come to an end. The Bulldogs were the only team who beat the Michigan Tech Huskies by more than three scores, which says an awful lot about how well the Huskies played this year.

With a 32-28 victory over Saginaw Valley State on Saturday, Nov. 16, the Huskies finished their season 7-4 with a 4-3 record in GLIAC play, having lost to the Bulldogs, Grand Valley State, and Davenport.

For coach Dan Mettlach, the season’s tone was set in preseason workouts. A big reason for the success came from how the coaching staff was all aligned with one goal in mind.

“I don’t think you could ask for a better group of guys,” he said, in an interview shortly after the season ended. “It’s a working relationship, personal relationships. Just the way that everybody gets along together, understands what we’re trying to do here. Everybody’s going in the same direction, speaking the same language, same message is getting shared in each position group. The cohesion between the staff, I think, is evident to the guys, which, obviously, when you’re going through it daily, you get to Saturdays, and there is no complaining one way or another, everybody’s playing for each other. I think that’s a huge deal.”

The Huskies opened the season with the overtime loss to then-No. 25 Bemidji State, before defeating South Dakota Mines in multiple overtimes. From there, the Huskies rolled to wins over Hillsdale, Wisconsin-Oshkosh, Wayne State, Northern Michigan, Roosevelt and Saginaw Valley.

Mettlach loved how well his team came together over the course of the season.

“Yeah, 7-4, I think, is an incredible season,” he said. “I’m happy with what these guys were able to do.”

That does not mean the Huskies are complacent.

“At the same time, I think for a long time, anybody that was involved in this program this year is going to do the what if with those two games,” said Mettlach when discussing losses to Bemidji State and Davenport, which were both by six points or less. “Make one more play up 13 at Bemidji, tackle a kickoff return against Davenport, whatever it might be. Those shoulda, coulda, wouldas are going to be something that these guys talk about for a long time, which is great. That just means that we took care of business, and the other games that we should have, and we’re closing the gap.”

Mettlach loves that his team wants a better fate than what they finished with.

“I think that’s the most positive thing for the guys that are still in the program,” he said. “To end it the way we did last weekend going into the offseason, I think there’s a lot of positive vibes going on in our locker room right now. Guys not satisfied with where we’re at. They’re hungry to get back in the weight room, and, obviously, get working towards 2025. So, a lot of good came out of what we were able to do this fall.”

One big piece beyond the coaching staff is the state of the locker room, which Mettlach felt was in a great place throughout the fall, and that was evident as the Huskies scored 21 points in that final game to overcome the Cardinals.

“Very easily in the last game, an emotional day for a lot of guys in the first place, it could have just snowballed in the wrong direction,” he said. “But again, I’ve been saying it for a year and a half now, I feel like the leadership in our locker room, player-led locker room, whether we were playing in our last game of our careers, or last game of our true freshman year, I feel like the guys in our locker room feel like every game means something. I think that gets back to what we stress every day with our core values, and playing the game for the right reasons. There’s got to be more to it when you’re playing the ultimate team game than individual whatever.”

Mettlach said that was a point that was stressed in the locker room at halftime against Saginaw Valley.

“We talked about that at halftime too,” he said. “Looking around the locker room, playing for the guy next to you. Mark Sippel and Ethan Champney would have loved to have been in uniform, and weren’t, so it’s easy to mail it in and feel bad for yourself, but guys like that would have killed to be on the field, and just little reminders like that to where it’s always about something more than yourself.

“I give our seniors a lot of credit too. We talked a lot about winning the seventh game, going into recruiting season, getting momentum going for next year, which has zero to do with them. At the same time, there’s enough pride in their current team in the program to understand how important that is, that we’re not just trying to send seniors off on the right foot, but help the program go in the right direction. Thankfully, we were able to do that.”

While senior quarterback Alex Fries scored the team’s final touchdown to give them the win on a field very near his home in Saginaw, one of his favorite targets, Champney, a high school teammate of Fries, missed that game. Mettlach is optimistic about Champney making a full recovery in time for the 2025 season.

“His career is not done yet,” said Mettlach. “Obviously, he’s got a long road ahead of him with the rehab. He had surgery the Friday before the game, so we saw him down there, and the surgery went well and everything. But that type of injury, the rehab is not easy.

“I talked to him at halftime, talked to him after the game, and, as a competitive kid, it’s what a frustrating way to sit there and watch it. Obviously, it ends well, so he’s happy, but I mean he’s sitting there on the sideline, can’t do a thing about it, and, of course, feels like if he was in uniform, he could be making plays, which we all feel that way. So, tough way for it to end for him, but he’s got one more chapter to write too.”

Champney finished second on the Huskies in receptions and yards despite missing the final three games of the season. His 40 catches for 631 yards and four touchdowns will make him a top target again in 2025.

However, the graduation of Fries will lead to a change at quarterback. Fries threw for 2,215 yards and 19 touchdowns this season.

“I mean, his whole career, from the day we recruited him, through the whole thing, we talked about him being the guy,” said Mettlach. “(He) waits his time behind Will Ark for probably longer than he wanted to, starts for two years and has a great career as a starter. The arm talent was always there, dynamic with his feet when he needed to be. So, that gave us a little bit of an extra advantage that we hadn’t had.

“(With) every ‘Q’ (quarterback), there’s a couple of those, ‘What the heck are you doing?’ moments that we wish we would have had back, but that’s everybody. I think until you stand behind center and play when there’s live bullets, it’s easy to sit in the stands and say, ‘What the heck are you doing?’ But the way he handled himself, the team, the ups and downs, the pressures of playing the position, I can’t ask for much more than that. The way he did it and how he went about his business, I just have the ultimate respect for him and happy he chose Tech when he did. I feel like he’s as talented as we’ve had at that position here. and wish we could have had a couple more wins to see what he would have done in a playoff-type situation, but we didn’t get there. He left it in a better spot than he found it.”

The Huskies’ offense will feature some new faces next season in some key spots, but Mettlach feels that they are working in the right direction, and he is excited to see if the team can continue to make strides.