Wildcats aiming to have breakout season
MARQUETTE — “Do I feel the pressure? Absolutely not. No more pressure than what I felt in year one. I’ve moved my family all over the country, I’ve coached college football all of my life and make a pretty good living doing it. I want to win them all every single year and this year’s no different.”
Chris Ostrowsky enters his fourth season as the head coach of the Wildcats. He believes his team is primed and ready to go on both sides of the football. For the offense, it all starts with quarterback Shaye Brown.
“Shaye’s had a great summer,” said Ostrowsky. He had a really successful spring for us and I think he’s carried that through camp. He’s fluent now. When I say fluent, I mean he’s fluent in this offense. He speaks the language and I think that’s important for a quarterback.
“It’s about that time. This program and this community is just done with the losing. I think it’s time that we win some games for them,” said Brown. “I hate after a loss that you look around and see how bummed they are after how much effort they put in. We have to do something to turn it around. This year has to be it.”
“For us, it’s our senior season so we’re really trying to finish strong,” said wide receiver Marcus Tucker. “In every sense of the word, in every essence of what we are as a program, we’re trying to finish this thing here.”
Defensively, the Cats feel like they can be one of the top ‘D’s in the conference.
“We had a lot of young guys play last year and the year before that, so now we’re to the point that we’re all upperclassmen,” said linebacker Levi Perry. “We know the defense so playing is just reacting. We fly around and play fast; that’s what we preach.”
“The defense is going to surprise some people,” said Ostrowsky. “They’re aggressive. They really play football with violent intentions, which you have to do on defense.”
When asked about being selected to finish in last place in the GLIAC North Division, the Cats said that they haven’t even looked at the polls, nor do the care to.
“They can vote us wherever they want, but at the end of the day, we’re going to play Wildcat football,” said center Kyle Steuck.
“This team here is all I care about,” said Perry. The standings; it is what it is.”
NMU opens the season Sept. 5 at Northwood.