Week three has come and gone, and with conference play about to take center stage, the bowl picture is starting to sharpen around the edges. For Minnesota, though, the early projections are a mixed bag. A few outlets still see the Gophers in the postseason, but others have already written them out.
ESPN’s Kyle Bonagura has Minnesota missing out entirely. So does On3.
ESPN’s Mark Schlabach, meanwhile, sends the Gophers to the Cactus Bowl against Baylor, while CBS Sports also lands them in the Cactus Bowl, this time against West Virginia. Athlon pegs Minnesota for the Pinstripe Bowl in New York against Pittsburgh.
That Cactus Bowl forecast is a little strange on the surface, since it would put Minnesota back in the same game it played last year. The bowl’s title sponsor is gone, the game has gone back to the Cactus Bowl name, and it’s once again being played at Arizona State’s stadium in Tempe. Technically, it might still be possible for the Gophers to end up there again.
Still, that seems unlikely. The Big Ten conference office has pushed to stop teams from showing up in the same bowl in consecutive seasons, and there’s no reason to think it would give that ground back now. For the moment, the safest move is to treat those projections with a shrug and wait for next weekend.
The bigger picture in the Big Ten is more eye-catching anyway. In Gopher Gazette’s latest conference projection, Ohio State is the league’s lone team with a first-round bye in the College Football Playoffs, while Indiana gets Louisville and USC draws BYU in the opening round. From there, Iowa is projected to the Citrus Bowl against Alabama, Michigan to the ReliaQuest Bowl against Tennessee, and Penn State to the Music City Bowl against Florida.
Minnesota lands in the Pinstripe Bowl against Pittsburgh in that forecast. The rest of the Big Ten slate has Illinois facing Virginia in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, Nebraska taking on Kansas State in the Cactus Bowl, Wisconsin matched with Arizona State in the First Responder Bowl, and Maryland paired with Army in the Armed Forces Bowl.
Outside the Big Ten, the projection also has Oregon in the Alamo Bowl against Texas Tech, UCLA in the Las Vegas Bowl against Missouri, and Washington in the Holiday Bowl against North Carolina.
As the non-conference schedule fades into the rearview mirror, the real question is how the Big Ten’s playoff hopefuls hold up once the league games start sorting everybody out. Before the season, the conference looked like it had three obvious playoff teams and a few others hanging around the edge.
But the non-conference results changed the conversation fast, with Ohio State’s road loss to Texas and Oregon falling short of the dominant level many expected. Now the league’s pecking order is about to get a lot clearer.
In Other News...
Minnesota Faces One Big Washington Question Before Big Ten Opener
Washingtons first Big Ten home game brings a new kind of early-season test, and Minnesota walks into it with a decent sense of the challenge ahead. The Gophers are heading on the road for the first time this season, while Washington is settling in for its fourth straight game at home after opening 3-0, a start built in part around quarterback Demond Williams Jr. and safety Alex McLaughlin.
The bigger question for Minnesota is how much of Washingtons preseason buzz still translates once the league games begin. The Huskies entered the fall with several players drawing preseason All-Big Ten attention, but there are injury concerns worth monitoring too, including center Landen Hatchett and defensive tackle Elinneus Davis, which could matter in a game where early conference positioning already adds a little extra weight. [Read more 🡒]
Minnesotas First Big Ten Test Puts One Early Question Front And Center
A long travel week ends with Minnesotas first real checkpoint of the season, as the Golden Gophers open Big Ten play Saturday night against No. 23 Washington at Husky Stadium in Seattle. It is a late kickoff by Central time, a national-stage matchup on FOX 9, and a chance for Minnesota to see how its early progress holds up against a ranked opponent that has not stumbled yet.
The Gophers arrive at 2-1, while Washington is unbeaten at 3-0, which gives this one an early-season edge that should say plenty about where both teams stand. For Minnesota, the bigger question is not just whether it can compete in a tough road setting, but how it handles the jump in speed, physicality and scrutiny that comes with opening conference play against a team like the Huskies. [Read more 🡒]
Gophers Run Game Suddenly Has One Big Test Ahead
Minnesotas rushing attack has been under a microscope after a stretch of uneven production, even in a win over Akron that left plenty to sort through. For long stretches, the ground game never looked fully in rhythm, and the overall yardage reflected that before the offense leaned harder into the run late and finally started finding some traction.
The late surge, with the Gophers piling up meaningful rushing yards and touchdowns in the final quarters, at least gave the staff something tangible to point to. The bigger question now is whether that finish was the first sign of a cleaner, more reliable run game or just the byproduct of wearing down a weaker defense, because the next test will say a lot more about where this offense really stands. [Read more 🡒]