Michigan Tech football coach Dan Mettlach walks the sideline during a game against South Dakota Mines Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, at Kearly Stadium. (David Archambeau/For the Gazette)

HOUGHTON — Recently, the Michigan Tech Huskies football team announced their schedule for the 2025 season. They have four non-conference opponents in Bemidji State, South Dakota Mines, Hillsdale, and Upper Iowa before getting into their GLIAC schedule facing Wayne State, Davenport, Ferris State, Northern Michigan, Roosevelt, Grand Valley State, and Saginaw Valley State.

In college football, there seem to be two schools of thought on how you build your schedule, one, load up on easy teams, giving you a chance to 3-0 or 4-0 before you even see a conference opponent, or load up on difficult matchups to test your team and prepare them for the grind of the conference schedule.

“There’s two things, really, one, obviously from a competitive standpoint, we only get 11 opportunities, and the thought is we want our guys to be in as many big time games as we can be in,” said Huskies coach Dan Mettlach. “That’s what college football is all about. At the same time, if you could schedule a tough non-conference, and get through it with the bye week off before you get to league play, there’s not a huge jump to get ready for the guys we have to see in the GLIAC. It’d, obviously, be nice to be able to go out there and hand-pick four games that you know you can win, and be 4-0 going into it. But, that’s easier said than done as well.

“I feel like a lot of teams out there are like us, where they feel like they can win every single weekend they get on the field. So, I don’t know where those teams would be coming from anyways that we just feel like we’re going to go out and dominate.”

The other hard part in NCAA Division II, as opposed to Division I, school budgets make it harder to make long trips viable. So, while the Big Ten conference stretches from Pennsylvania to California, the GLIAC is Michigan and Illinois for football. Scheduling non-conference opponents willing to make the trek to Houghton becomes a lot more difficult, and leaves Michigan Tech with having to choose teams from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa.

“The other part of it is our location,” Mettlach said. “It is not easy to get teams to want to come up here. At the end of the day, when you’re trying to schedule these non-conferences, you’re trying to get at least a two-year deal, so you can get a home and home with them, if not make it go further.

“There are plenty of teams in the country that are all right with us taking the bus trip to them. They just don’t want to return it up here. It makes sense, in my mind, for us to go play the schools in the NSIC. From a travel standpoint, there’s a lot of schools that are like ours. They play good football over there, and it’s a league that Tech used to be in. From that standpoint, we’re familiar with some of those teams, even though we don’t see them every year, and know quite a few of the coaches over there. We see them at camps every summer, and so the relationships are built with those guys.”

Of course, when considering a non-conference opponent, fan travel is considered as well. Add to that the way in-region games are weighted when the NCAA Tournament field is being constructed, and there is even more incentive to stay closer to home.

“It allows for our fans to travel only one state away, rather than a couple years back when we took a flight to Texas, or at one point we were supposed to drive out to South Carolina and play that team,” said Mettlach. “They ended up dropping us. But, just regionally, if we can get teams that are like us, travel-wise, (that) makes sense. Now with the new playoff deal, playing teams in-region, obviously that helps strengthen (our) schedule as well.”

FACING THE BEAVERS

For the second straight season, the Huskies will battle the Bemidji State Beavers to open the season. This time, however, they are coming to Houghton. The Huskies dropped the game to them last season in overtime, 19-13.

“They are very good, and have been for a handful of years now,” Mettlach said. “Coach (Brent) Bolte does a great job with them. Not only are they a playoff team the last three years, but they’re three rounds deep in the playoffs, too. They’re making good runs when they get in there.

“I think that’s good for our guys. I feel like the GLIAC is the best conference in the country. At the same time, you’re going to play another league that feels like they are a very good league as well. You’re getting one of the top teams in that league the last five years. So, I think it’s a good challenge for our guys.”

FACING THE ROCKERS

The Huskies and the South Dakota Mines Rockers battled last season into a fourth overtime before the Black and Gold emerged with the win, 52-50.

“I have to imagine, if they’re doing an interview back in South Dakota right now, they’re talking about the same thing with our game as we had with Bemidji, they had too many chances to put it away,” said Mettlach. “From our side, it was, I think I said this after the game last year, that I never felt like we were out of the game, even when it (the deficit) was 21 again, we just watched that one again with our self scout stuff, and I didn’t realize it’s 21 with five minutes left in the second half. In the first half we’re down 21-0, and then it’s late in the third quarter, we’re still down 21, and the guys keep playing, and eventually you find a way to get that one done.

“That’s the way college football goes. We talk about how close we were to Bemidji. We were that close to being 0-2 last year as well. It can go both ways, and that’s why you have to be able to show up for four full quarters.”

FACING THE CHARGERS

The Huskies defeated the Hillsdale Chargers last season at home. This year, the final year of an agreement between the two schools, the Huskies head out to face them.

“If there’s any school in Michigan DII-wise that’s similar to us, it is them, just because of the academic part of it,” Mettlach said. “I worked there for two years, so I know all those guys. Their staff, obviously Coach Otter (Keith Otterbein) is gone now, but the rest of the staff is all the same for the most part, so I know how things go in that building, and at that school, the type of kids they have. It’s very much like ours. So, it only makes sense that we play.

“But, they’re going to end that scheduling relationship, if you will, with us after this fall, and we’ll have to find somebody else to replace that gap. It’s always a good game with them. It’s always competitive. Very few times is either side ever winning big. It’s a constant battle with them. We’ll go to their place this year to end it, hopefully end with a victory, and see what happens from there.”

FACING THE PEACOCKS

The final non-conference opponent is a team the Huskies last played in 2023, when they won 34-31 on the road. This year, the Upper Iowa Peacocks make the trek to Houghton.

“Two years ago was the first time we’ve ever seen them,” said Mettlach. “We played at their place. It’s only a six-hour ride, which we love, but it was an odd trip. Some of the roads we took to get to where that campus is located were different for the guys. It’s a small town, not a whole lot there, so it forces you to stay about an hour away. That part is different for the guys. Having an hour trip on the day of the game, and not knowing where you’re going and so on and so forth. That was a little bit odd.

“From a football standpoint, they play hard. They’ve got athletes at all the skill spots, very much built like Bemidji coming from that league two years ago. They got into the GLVC now. But, the type of kids they have, they’re Midwestern for the most part, where physical skill spots, can all run, and it was one of those deals where you see them on film, and at the time they were at the bottom of the NSIC. You’re seeing them play against (Minnesota-)Duluth and (Minnesota State-)Mankato and Bemidji, Winona State, not winning a ton of games, but they’re middle of the pack to lower end. We’ll know what they are capable of, and how they play, so that’ll help. But, they have to come to our place, and we always want to feel like playing at Sherman is a home field advantage for us, for sure.”

FACING THE GLIAC

The remainder of the schedule sees the Huskies playing a flipped version of the 2024 schedule, where Ferris State, Roosevelt and Saginaw Valley State come to Houghton, while the Huskies travel to face Wayne State, Davenport, Northern Michigan, and Grand Valley State.

Mettlach feels the GLIAC is the toughest conference in Division II, so he knows that there are no easy wins.

“There are not,” he said. “We’ll have our hands full this year. The schedule flips, obviously, with home and away. So, when we get done with our bye week after the non-conference, it’s at Wayne, back home, right back to Davenport, back home. Then you get to welcome Ferris State up here in that next one.

“So, we’ll run a little bit of a gauntlet when we get to that point, and it’s not ever going to be an excuse up here. These kids know, when they sign on the dotted line, what league they’re playing in. Travel is never going to be an excuse for us. We know where we’re located at, so we have to find a way after those non-conference, you come out of a bye week, to get off on a fast start. It’s going to be back-to-back road trips. Good teams find a way to win on the road. That’s going to be something we have to be able to do.”