Michigan Tech running back Jake Rueff breaks through a pair of tackles during a game Saturday against Upper Iowa at Kearly Stadium in Houghton. (David Archambeau/For the Gazette)

HOUGHTON — Three weeks into the 2025 college football season, the Michigan Tech Huskies seemingly had it all. They were 3-0, having defeated then-No. 16 Bemidji State, then South Dakota Mines, and finally, Hillsdale. With one non-conference matchup left, and entering Saturday nationally-ranked at No. 24, everything was going their way.

Then, back home for the first time in three weeks, on Homecoming weekend, everything went south.

The Huskies even had a 7-0 lead after the first 15 minutes. But, 21 straight points by Upper Iowa gave the Peacocks the lead. The Huskies held them off the board after that, but could only get one touchdown back, falling 21-14.

“Getting back to it, watching it, kind of talking with the rest of the staff, (we) did not do a great job of getting our guys ready to play that game,” said Huskies coach Dan Mettlach. “From a mental standpoint, whatever the excuses could have been, that’s on myself and staff to make sure that our guys are locked in to play that particular game, regardless of who it was. To come home on Homecoming, in front of an incredible crowd, and have no energy, and no passion to play at home for the first time in three weeks, that falls directly on me.

“It just led to … we just didn’t execute our stuff.”

Looking back at the video hours after the game, Mettlach was frustrated that the Huskies had multiple chances to make the kinds of plays necessary to keep their winning streak moving in the right direction.

“You go back and watch it on both sides, special teams, we had stuff there,” he said. “We just didn’t get it done. To me, you watch something like that, where there’s four dropped balls, two misses by the ‘Q’ (quarterback) on short throws, and defensively just missing guys where we knew we were prepped for some of their stuff they wanted to do and couldn’t get any pressure, I think it just all comes back to our guys weren’t mentally ready to go. We were just a step slow with everything. Again, that falls back on me.”

Mettlach said that, while the Huskies are still relatively young in terms of the amount of playing time by players in starting roles, that can no longer be an excuse. The Huskies are four games into the season, and should not still be making the kinds of mistakes that came back to bite them Saturday.

“It’s a bad taste going into the bye week like that,” Mettlach said. “At the same time, the world’s not ending. We’re 3-1. We played good football up to this point, didn’t play well in one game, and you just can’t let it beat you twice. So, all the things that we are trying to get corrected after the Upper game are the same things that we tried to get corrected after weeks one through three.

“The things that are being talked about in the position rooms, and the stuff that we’re talking to the guys about, it’s not like anything different happened. The attention to the details of the little things that we’re trying to get fixed after wins get magnified after you get beat. Now the guys just have to take what we learned from it and get better from it, rather than letting that game beat us again in two weeks from now.”

Redshirt sophomore quarterback Alex Bueno faced his first real adversity Saturday. After missing practice all week, he did start, going 11-of-22 through the air for 89 yards and one touchdown. On the ground, he was limited to 11 rushes for 45 yards.

“I give him a ton of credit,” said Mettlach. “He didn’t practice once last week, dinged up after the Hillsdale game. (We) weren’t sure if he was going to go, and he battled through some things, but he wasn’t himself. He couldn’t move like he wanted to. Some things that happened in the pocket, (he) wasn’t real comfortable, and we forced some stuff when we had underneath things.

“But, that’s all stuff that he’ll get better from seeing it back on film and understanding coverage. If they’re going to drop that many guys, take the underneath stuff. It wasn’t his best game. He knows that.”

If one player did have a strong day offensively, it was junior running back Jake Rueff. He had 18 rushes for 89 yards in the game.

“He played his butt off and ran hard,” Mettlach said. “(He) made things happen when it wasn’t there. There’s a couple where we miss at the point of attack, and he’s making two miss in the backfield to get us first down on third and one or whatever it is, and made guys miss downfield.

“That’s another one where we only had 54 snaps on Saturday. No rhythm to the offense with the penalties. We dropped two snaps to get drives started to put us back in a hole, and just were never consistently in a flow offensively. At the same time, our tailback played his butt off, and did get to the second and third level at times. Then we just didn’t get help from the skill guys.”

While there is still a lot of work to be done on the defensive side of the ball, Mettlach liked how the Huskies shut down the Peacocks over the final 30 minutes of the game.

“Yeah, really happy with that,” he said. “There’s a lot of things that we need to do better on that side of the football, as well. It’s not major things, where the front’s getting to and fits how the second level is, where we’re bringing pressure from, where we’re disguising it from, all those little details of what makes our defense tough to play against, we need to get better at. But, for what they did in the second half to shut down that quarterback, and those skill kids, was awesome. The tough part, and frustrating part, I think, for our defensive staff, and the defense as a whole, is the amount of third downs that were converted to keep drives alive when we had them in situations.”

Now, Mettlach said, the focus needs to be on those areas of the game the Huskies still aren’t doing well. So, they have spent practice time this week working their way through some of the same drills they did in camp before the season, trying to iron out those issues, rather than focus on their upcoming road matchup with Wayne State to open the GLIAC portion of their schedule.

“This week will be 95% focused on us getting better at what we do,” he said. “There will be a couple things that we introduce from Wayne’s standpoint in terms of their schemes. But, our goal for this week is to make sure that we get better, going back to more of an early-camp setting in terms of working on our stuff, and technique, and those types of things. But, Wayne will be addressed a little bit. We’ll get into that prep Monday of next week though.”