The 1975 Northern Michigan University football team didn’t have a collection of all-star players when it did the unthinkable and went from 0-10 in ’74 to bouncing back and winning the NCAA Division II national championship the following year.

Sure, the Wildcats had talent. But a team that had just went 0-10 the previous season wasn’t exactly going to walk out on the field and run teams over. The Wildcats weren’t as bad as their record indicated in ’74, they just simply didn’t know how to win, letting numerous games slip away.

There were six players from Dickinson County on that championship winning team. Iron Mountain graduates Mike Branz, Randy Awery and Steve Mariucci. Kingsford graduates Roy Brown and Rich McGuire and Norway graduate Brian Adams.

According to former Wildcat and Escanaba native Jack Hirn, the addition of assistant coach Buck Nystrom and his “4th quarter” program made all the difference in the world in the ’75 season.

From left, Northern Michigan University football players Randy Awrey, Jack Hirn and Steve Mariucci receive their equipment prior to training camp for the 1975 season. Hirn is a native of Escanaba while Awrey and Mariucci both grew up in Iron Mountain.

“Simply put, (coach Nystrom) made it his mission for us to own the final quarter of the game,” Hirn said. “We would raise four fingers at the start of the fourth quarter, which represented discipline, conditioning, motivation and effort. We trained and conditioned past the normal time of a game to create endurance in us. It drew out the toughness of many of the stronger guys, but also exposed those that didn’t have it in them. Many were shown the door and had scholarships revoked. The players that endured this brutal spring training session would become the essential nucleus of the championship team.”

That championship team did something no other team has done in the history of NCAA sports — follow a winless season with a national title.

Led by second-year coach Gil Krueger, the Wildcats started the season 5-0.

Arguably their biggest win in that stretch was a 17-16 road win over Central Michigan University. The Chippewas defeated the Wildcats 20-0 the season before and were defending national champs. Back then, small college and university were the only two divisions, making competition extra tough.

Feeling good after their win over CMU and 5-0 start, the Wildcats were brought back to earth in a 30-13 home loss to Akron three weeks later.

“The bitter taste of that loss made us more focused on each practice, taking it one game at a time,” Hirn acknowledged.

The Wildcats then went back to the drawing board, ending each practice with fourth quarter drills for the rest of the season. It paid dividends, as they finished the regular season with five straight victories to make the playoffs as the No. 8 seed.

Offensively, NMU was led by sophomore quarterback Mariucci, who started in place of a pair of senior quarterbacks who were victimized by injury throughout the season.

In a phone interview on Tuesday, Adams, who was a starting tight end for the Wildcats, points to the last game of the regular season at Western Illinois that stands out in his memory in regards to Mariucci.

“If I remember right, we were behind by at least two scores with about eight minutes left in the game,” Adams said. “Mooch led us on the game-winning scoring drive and threw a touchdown pass to Maurice Mitchell to win the game 27-23. We don’t win that game, we don’t make the playoffs and our season is over.”

Entering the playoffs, however, the Wildcats faced adversity from the NCAA rule book. Transfer rules made four of their defensive starters ineligible, forcing four true freshmen with little experience into action.

The Wildcats began the playoffs by visiting top-ranked Boise State, a current Division 1 FBS team. NMU won that snowy game on an icy field with defense, forcing the Broncos into six turnovers for a hard-fought 24-21 win.

NMU’s next playoff game against Livingston University (Ala.) wasn’t any easier. Livingston boasted a no-huddle offense, rotating quarterbacks in on every play. By the end of the game, they had run 80 offensive plays before the Wildcats forced a crucial turnover at the end to come away with a 28-26 win in rainy conditions, to earn a berth in the national championship game against Western Kentucky University.

“Those days of Autumn 1975 were strange times,” Hirn said. “An actor ran for president, another survived an assassination attempt, an heiress was kidnapped, and locally, in nearby Lake Superior, the Edmund Fitzgerald sank with its crew of 29. Across the world, Vietnam celebrated the Year of the Cat and our Northern team hoped it would bring our own ‘Cats better luck.”

The Wildcats needed it against a Western Kentucky team led by its winningest coach in school history, Jimmy Feix. The Hilltoppers had bigger, stronger and faster players. NMU’s limited defense and inexperienced quarterback had its work cut out for it in the title game played in Sacramento, Calif., at Hughes Stadium on an extremely windy day on Dec. 13.

Adams noted the playing surface was horrible at Hughes Stadium.

“The poor conditions for all three playoff games favored us, due to our mental toughness,” he said.

The first half was a back-and-forth struggle, with the Hilltoppers leading 14-10 at halftime after NMU scored a late second-quarter touchdown.

In the second half, Awrey broke a couple tackles and busted forward for a go-ahead 67-yard touchdown run to put NMU up 16-14 following the missed point after attempt.

Then in the fourth quarter, the Wildcats fourth quarter training came through one last time on the biggest stage of all, as they held the Hilltoppers off the scoreboard. The Hilltoppers had one last chance at a last-second field goal, but the kick was missed as the Wildcats completed the remarkable 180-turnaround and earned their only national title in school history, finishing 13-1.

Awery finished the game with 156 yards and was named the game’s MVP.

Adams noted he feels Awery wasn’t given enough credit for the Wildcats success that season.

“Randy sealed two consecutive home wins for us late in the season against Saginaw Valley and the Grand Valley with long touchdown runs,” he said. “He was a big reason we won it all.”

Starting linebacker Joel Hanner, son of former Green Bay Packers player and assistant coach “Hawg” Hanner, also missed the championship game, due to a hip injury sustained during practice in California the week leading up to the championship game.

“With five defensive starters on the sidelines for the championship game, I’d say our defense played pretty well, only giving up 14 points,” Adams said.

“Individually, we were a bunch of misfits,” Hirn said. “We had great influence from our coaches, we had a common belief in our fourth quarter conditioning, and we had each other’s backs.”

A documentary that Hirn executive-produced about the Wildcats’ championship team titled “Put Your Hand on the Line” came out in 2018. The film is tentatively scheduled to show Saturday, Sept. 26, at Bay College at 10 a.m. Eastern time.

“The 2018 documentary, ‘Put Your Hand on the Line’ says it best,” Hirn said. “We weren’t the biggest or the fastest or the strongest, but as a whole, we were. When you put us all together in a room, that was a heck of a room. The dedication, conditioning, effort and motivation we brought to the field in 1975 made it ‘The Year of the Cat.'”

Daily News Sports Writer Matt “Sweets” McCarthy contributed