Anthony Smith enters his final season at Minnesota carrying a lot of buzz, but he isn’t spending much time worrying about the weight of it.
The praise has piled up all offseason. Phil Steele slotted him as an All-American and a first-team All-Big Ten pick, and Cleveland.com named him preseason Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year last week. That attention tracks with what Smith just did on the field: his final 13 games ranked among the best stretches in modern Gopher history.
Smith finished the 2025 campaign with 12.5 sacks, becoming the first Gopher to hit double digits since Willie VanDeSteeg in 2009. He heads into this fall ranked sixth all-time at Minnesota with 19.5 sacks.
If he puts together another 10-sack season, he’ll move past Karon Riley’s 29.0 for the program record. The same kind of climb is there in the tackles-for-loss race, too.
Smith’s 17.5 TFLs last season were the sixth-most in a single year in Gopher Football history, pushing his career total to 31, which is eighth in school history. Add 14 more this fall, and he’d own the all-time mark there as well.
Still, the biggest question around Smith wasn’t about the numbers. It was why he came back to Minnesota for one more season.
He explained that decision in Chicago last week, and for the Pennsylvania native, it went well beyond football.
"I knew I was coming back before we went to Arizona for the Rate Bowl, as I had this dream to go win MVP and then say on stage afterward that I was coming back. And God willing, it happened," Smith said about the beginning of his thought process on returning to Minnesota.
"I think it was really easy for me in making my decision to come back. Coach Fleck has an amazing support staff, plus our trainers and weight room staff.
Then with the players, it was an easy decision to come back because I love being in Minnesota. I love the players.
I love the staff. I love Coach Fleck.
My family knew that I love this place, and I was going to stay."
Around December and January, the expectation was that Smith would land somewhere in the range of a day two pick in the next NFL Draft. When he was asked what agents and NFL people told him about that, Smith brushed aside the outside noise.
In Other News...
Gophers Backfield Takes Another Hit With Fresh Questions Ahead
Minnesotas backfield depth got thinner again this week, with Ryan Estradas season ending after the knee injury he suffered against Eastern Illinois. The loss stings not just because the Gophers are down another runner, but because Estrada arrived as a four-star recruit and was still in the early stages of carving out a role before the injury halted his 2026 season.
Estrada will come back as a sophomore in 2027 under the new eligibility rules, giving Minnesota a reason to think beyond the immediate setback. For now, though, he becomes the fourth Gopher sidelined for the year by a leg injury, a run of attrition that leaves even more pressure on the players still standing in the backfield. [Read more 🡒]
P.J. Fleck Sees One Gophers Game As A Bigger Statement
P.J. Fleck keeps circling back to the same idea when he talks about the Gophers place in the national conversation: bigger games should not be treated like a luxury. Minnesota is one of only three Big Ten teams set to face an SEC opponent in nonconference play this season, and Fleck sees that kind of matchup as part of what college football ought to be pushing toward, especially if the sport is serious about creating more parity and giving more programs a clearer path to prove themselves.
The broader issue, of course, is what the sport values when it comes time to sort out playoff access and strength of schedule. Fleck has pointed to ongoing discussions around playoff criteria and scheduling, along with a tentative SEC-Big Ten agreement tied to future requirements in a possible 24-team format, as evidence that the conversation is moving in the right direction. For Minnesota, the immediate focus is on the game in front of it, but the larger argument is hard to miss: these nonconference tests could end up meaning a lot more than just one Saturday. [Read more 🡒]
Javon Tracy Just Gave Minnesota A Special Teams Weapon Fans Need To See
Javon Tracys Minnesota debut on special teams was the kind of burst that can change how a team is viewed on a weekly basis. The wide receiver was named Big Ten Special Teams Player of the Week after turning a lopsided 59-7 win over Eastern Illinois into a showcase for his open-field ability, piling up a school-record 167 punt return yards on four chances and instantly giving the Gophers a jolt in a phase of the game that often swings hidden yardage.
What made the afternoon even more remarkable is how quickly Tracy carved out his place in the record book. He became the first player in Big Ten history to score two punt return touchdowns in his first career game returning punts, and the first Gopher to do it in a single game, leaving Minnesota with a new wrinkle to watch as the season moves forward. For a team always looking for ways to create momentum, that kind of weapon is hard to ignore. [Read more 🡒]