Minnesota opens its 143rd football season Thursday night with Eastern Illinois coming to Huntington Bank Stadium, and the setup is pretty straightforward: kickoff is set for 7 p.m. CST, with the game on Peacock or NBCSN and streaming available through the Peacock app. A FuboTV link is also listed, and the weather call for Minneapolis is 76 degrees with partly cloudy skies.
The Gophers have handled these moments well lately. Minnesota is 99-37-6 all-time in season openers and has won three of its last four.
At home, the numbers are just as strong: the Golden Gophers are 103-32-7 in home openers, with three wins in their past four, and they’ve opened a season at home for 14 straight years. Since Huntington Bank Stadium opened in 2009, Minnesota is 11-6 in home openers.
This one also marks the 10th season for P.J. Fleck in charge, and he enters it with a 66-44 record at Minnesota.
That puts him fourth in program history in total wins and fourth in Big Ten wins with 39, while his 110 games coached rank fifth. His .600 winning percentage is third among Minnesota coaches with more than 40 games, trailing only Henry L.
Williams and Bernie Bierman. In his 14th year overall as a college head coach, Fleck is 96-66 and four wins shy of becoming the 18th active FBS head coach to reach 100.
On the field, Minnesota again leans on junior quarterback Drake Lindsey, who returns after a strong first season as the starter. He completed 246 of 389 passes for 2,382 yards, 18 touchdowns and six interceptions, and also added a team-high four rushing touchdowns.
Those numbers placed him second all-time among Gopher freshmen in passing yards and passing touchdowns, and his eight wins were the most ever by a Gopher freshman quarterback. Within single-season school history, Lindsey finished second in lowest interception percentage, third in TD-to-INT ratio, fourth in completions and completion percentage, fifth in passing attempts, eighth in passing touchdowns and touchdowns responsible for, and 14th in passing yards.
One of the biggest reasons for that production was how well he protected the ball. Lindsey had a 112-pass streak without an interception last season, which ranks fifth in program history, and he has now gone 153 passes without a pick.
That’s third-best in Minnesota history and four away from tying for second. Max Brosmer owns the school record with 206 straight passes without an interception in the 2024 season.
Minnesota’s defense is built around Anthony Smith, and the fifth-year senior comes into 2026 with major hardware on the watch list. He’s on the radar for the Nagurski Trophy and Lombardi Award and was named a First Team Preseason All-American by Phil Steele after a breakout 2025. Smith finished with team highs of 17.5 tackles for loss and 12.5 sacks, plus 38 tackles and three pass breakups, earning First Team All-Big Ten honors.
Those numbers stood out nationally, too. Smith was one of four players in the country last year - and the only one returning this season - to reach those sack and tackle-for-loss totals.
Miami’s Akheem Mesidor and Texas Tech’s David Bailey were the other two among that group, and both were first-round picks in the 2026 NFL Draft. Smith’s 17.5 tackles for loss ranked second in the Big Ten, fifth in the country and sixth in Gopher history, while his 121 TFL yards led the conference and ranked third in the FBS.
His 12.5 sacks led the Big Ten, tied for third nationally and ranked fourth in program history.
Smith’s last outing was a monster: six tackles, a career-high 4.0 tackles for loss, 2.0 sacks and a career-best two pass breakups in Minnesota’s win over New Mexico in the 2025 Rate Bowl. The source notes that no FBS player had posted that stat line in a game since 2018. Entering the 2026 season, Smith needs 12.5 tackles for loss and 9.5 sacks to tie the program records in each category.
Minnesota and Eastern Illinois have met once before, with the Gophers leading the series 1-0 after a 42-20 win in Minneapolis on Aug. 28, 2014.
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Cade Tyson Could Change Everything For Minnesota As Waiting Drags On
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Gophers Face A Bigger Jersey Sponsorship Dilemma Than Fans Realize
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