This week, a familiar slate of festivities are leading up to the 17th-annual Upper Peninsula Football All-Star Game, to be played at 1 p.m. Eastern time Saturday at the Superior Dome in Marquette.

Led by owner and special strengths coach Dustin Brancheau, AdvantEdge Sports Training is taking the reins of this all-star encounter for the second straight year from the game’s originator, Todd Goldbeck.

Many of the activities held during the week have continued, including Monday morning’s check-in of at least 80 players into dorms at Northern Michigan University. The Superior Dome is part of NMU’s campus, while the Wildcats are the college football team Brancheau played for.

At least one practice a day is scheduled throughout this week, with a media night, skills competition, group outing at Bay Cliff Health Camp in Big Bay and all-star banquet also likely on the agenda.

This can be a bittersweet time for the players, all of whom have just graduated over the past few weeks from their respective U.P. high schools, since for the majority of them this will the last time they gear up and take to the gridiron.

The same may well be true for the head coaches of the teams, too.

Negaunee High School’s Paul Jacobson will head up Team Red, almost exactly six months after he announced his retirement in mid-December as the Miners’ head coach after 25 years, plus another three years before that as assistant to the late Dick Koski at Jacobson’s alma mater in Negaunee.

And Team Black head man Robin Marttila announced his retirement as head coach at Iron Mountain just a few days before Jacobson. He had in 14 years as head coach to go with nine as an assistant, and like Jacobson, coached at the high school he played for.

“I’m so excited to have those guys,” Brancheau told assembled media recently.

North Central’s Lane Gorzinski breaks a tackle against Gaylord St. Mary on Nov. 2 at North Central High School. Gorzinski will be a member of Team Black in the Upper Peninsula Football All-Star Game. (Adam Hinch/Escanaba Daily Press photo)

Each head coach has a staff of another seven veteran U.P. coaches to help manage their rosters that number 40 for each team, according to the game’s Facebook page titled “U.P. Football All-Star Game 2025.”

Jacobson will have three of his now-former assistants — his brother Kevin Jacobson, Sam Gilles and new Miners head coach Jeff Niemi — along with head coach Mark Novara and assistants Joe Kriegl and Steve Noasconi of Kingsford, along with head coach Brian Fabbri of Forest Park.

Marttila will have a trio of past and current coaches from area schools helping him. There’s multiple halls-of-fame head coach Jeff Olson, who retired from the Ishpeming High School sidelines in 2019, and current head men Tyler Thomas of Westwood and Matt Mattson of Munising.

Marttila also has North Central head coach Leo Gorzinski and assistant Jeff Nason, Houghton head coach Tim Driscoll and former Menominee head coach Joe Noha, who retired from his position in 2021.

Tickets for Saturday’s game are $10 if purchased in advance and $12 at the door, with children ages 2 and under getting in free. Doors open at noon on game day.

Advance tickets are available at the NMU Tickets website, nmu.universitytickets.com, and looking under the date of the game, June 21.

The game will be livestreamed online at WLUC-TV6 at www.uppermichigansource.com, then be televised on a tape-delayed basis on its sister station Fox-U.P. at 11 a.m. Eastern time Sunday.

A draft that was adopted about a decade ago, held on March 9 this year, divided up the players, and probably not too surprisingly, Paul Jacobson nabbed five of his seven Negaunee players who were available.

For this year’s game, the Miners have the most players involved of any school across the entire U.P., with Iron Mountain next with six and surprisingly eight-player team Pickford next with five.

Only graduated seniors can play in this game as all-star participation endangers an MHSAA athlete’s eligibility if some remains.

In all, 29 schools playing both 11-player and eight-player football have at least one athlete on the rosters.