Coming off its first victory in a month, the Grand Valley State University football team will look to bring some of the dominance it showcased last weekend’s 70-7 victory with them to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in this week’s game at Northern Michigan University.

The Lakers (2-3, 1-3 GLIAC) will make the trip to Marquette with their eyes on a second conference win and their first road win of the season against the Huskies (3-2, 2-2 GLIAC).

But standing in their way will be Wildcat quarterback Carter Kopach. The senior is among the GLIAC leaders in passing with 1,061 yards and 11 touchdowns, but it’s his ability to make plays with his feet – shown by 371 rushing yards – that has the GVSU defense on its toes.

“He’s really scary when he starts scrambling because sometimes he scrambles to run and other times he scrambles
to throw,” said GVSU head coach Matt Mitchell. “In five games this year, the first guy there has never tackled him, so we’ve got to have a relentless pursuit.”

While Kopach is coming off a torn Achilles tendon suffered in a 28-7 loss at GVSU last season, the awareness of the dual-threat quarterback is something the Lakers have worked on this week in practice, and the return of safety Zach Breen will be a boost for the defense.

The NCAA suspended the senior for five games after testing positive for a banned over-the-counter supplement.
“I’m more than excited to be back. It’s been a long wait, harder than I expected,” Breen said. “I hope I can bring a calming presence, but I hope I can bring a ‘hyped’ presence too because on the road these last few weeks we haven’t done much as a defense.”
Breen will start on the kickoff team for the first time in his career, as well as seeing time at the nickel corner position,
his usual free safety position and in an inverted linebacker- safety position within the Lakers’ 3-4 defense.
“It helps us a lot because we think too much up their at the nickel position, and [Breen]’ll bring a lot of knowledge of the defense,” said Kenny Veal, junior cornerback.

“It’ll help us to avoid making mistakes.” Northern Michigan enters the game with two losses, and GVSU knows it’ll be playing a team determined to keep its playoff hopes alive.

“We’ve got to have a grinder’s mentality,” Mitchell said. “Offensively, you just have to grind through stuff, and defensively you have to keep running after the quarterback”

Defensively, the Wildcats will look to force the Lakers into turnovers. Forcing 12 turnovers this season, Northern Michigan’s opportunistic defense will look to force GVSU into a turnover-filled game similar to what happened in the team’s loss against the University of Findlay.

“Our ball security is going to be critical Saturday, “ Mitchell said. “We need to make sure that even if things aren’t going great in terms of execution, we’ve go to just have patience on offense — we can’t get over-anxious at the quarterback position and try to do too much.”

GVSU will take on the Wildcats in Marquette, Mich., on Saturday at 1 p.m. The game will be broadcasted on 107.9 WMUS.

sports@lanthorn.