BIG RAPIDS---The Northern Michigan Universty football team opened GLIAC conference play on Saturday with the biggest task in NCAA-Division Two sports: try to beat the two time defending national champions. On their field. On their Homecoming..

And while you're trying to build your program from scratch, with an entirely new coaching staff and mostly new players. It didn't go well as the young 'Cats lost, 78-3.

It was 27-0 after the first quarter and got progressively worse from there, as the Wildcats trailed, 55-3, at halfiime, and the Bulldogs continued to pile it on in the second half

Ferris State set a school record for number of points scpred in a game, and they had 705 yards of total offense, 497 of thoseon the ground. Those 497 rushing yards are the most NMU has ever given up in a football game in Wildcat football history.

Ferris also had 15 penalties, seven of which were personal foul penalties. And the Bulldogs had two players ejected from the game. NMU had one penalty all day, for five yards.

A 42-yard field goal from Mike Karlen late in the second quarter gave NMU its only points.

NMU fell to 0-5 on the season while Ferris improved to 4-1.