The Gophers can move on to Akron this week, but the sting from a 38-13 beatdown at Mississippi State is going to hang around a lot longer than one final nonconference game.
That loss landed hard because it exposed Minnesota in ways few expected. Mississippi State didn’t just win - it controlled the game at the line of scrimmage, pushed the pace, and left the Gophers chasing all night. For a team that usually leans on physicality, that was the unsettling part.
“There’s some things we didn’t do particularly well,” Fleck said at the start of his Monday news conference.
When a reporter pressed him on what, exactly, went wrong, the exchange turned into a small window into just how broad the problems were.
“Which side of the ball?” Fleck responded.
“You tell me,” the reporter said.
“How long is the press conference?” Fleck replied.
From there, Fleck spent the next five minutes walking through the mess.
Mississippi State quarterback Kamario Taylor was a major problem, and Fleck called him a “generational quarterback” after Taylor piled up 313 total yards and threw three touchdown passes. Minnesota also got hammered by penalties, finishing with 12 for 115 yards.
Mississippi State had six for 50 yards. It was the most penalties in a game during Fleck’s nine-plus years in charge.
The defense had trouble tackling, trouble communicating in the secondary, and trouble adjusting to the Bulldogs’ speed. Fleck said some of the communication breakdowns were created by Mississippi State’s tempo, and those issues helped fuel coverage busts and explosive plays.
On offense, the Gophers kept getting stuck behind the sticks on first and second down, especially when they tried to run the ball. That led to only two field-goal drives and six other empty possessions.
“A lot of self-inflicted wounds there,” said Fleck, whose team was actually plus-one in turnover margin.
Minnesota’s staff had extra time to prepare, with the timing of the season openers giving the Gophers two more days than Mississippi State. Fleck was asked about the work of defensive coordinator Danny Collins and offensive coordinator Greg Harbaugh, and he stood by the plan.
“I thought the game plan on both sides of the ball was really good,” Fleck said. “Now, you have hindsight when you go back and look at it, everybody does that because you get an outcome.
Are there things we would have changed if we would have known certain things? Absolutely.”
Still, the biggest issue was obvious: Minnesota got beat at the line on both sides. The Gophers, a Big Ten team that was supposed to have the edge in physical play, managed just 0.9 yards per carry. Mississippi State rolled for 5.5 yards per rush.
“I thought we were getting some dent upfront,” Fleck said about the first drive, on which the Gophers averaged 2.6 yards per carry.
Then the game slipped away. After the defense gave up touchdowns on Mississippi State’s first four drives, Minnesota had to scrap the run and finished with 36 straight passes.
There are personnel questions all over the place, starting on the right side of the offensive line. Daniel Shipp has opened at tackle but has rotated with Tennessee transfer Bennett Warren. Neither has settled the spot, and both have drawn subpar Pro Football Focus grades.
“It’s fluid,” Fleck told the Pioneer Press. “I think they’ve got competition there. I feel good about the guys that are there.”
The defensive line has been unsettled too. Theo Randle and Marshall transfer Naquan Crowder started the opener against Eastern Illinois, while Jaylin Hicks and Anthony Smith got the first snaps against Mississippi State. The rotation inside has kept shifting through the first two games.
Smith, a 6-foot-6, 280-pound edge rusher, spent about 37 of his 58 snaps inside against the Bulldogs, according to PFF. He has played there before, and Fleck said the move was intentional.
“We want to be able to move him to different places,” Fleck said. “We’ve done that with him a lot, but putting him in different positions based on the internal issue we were having, we felt like that was going to be a good change for us.”
Smith entered the year as the preseason Big Ten defensive player of the year, and Akron coach Joe Moorhead this week called him a “game-wrecker.” But through two games, Smith has only three total tackles, 1½ for lost yards, no sacks and four pressures.
He’s not the only prominent name off to a quiet start. Running back Darius Taylor was physically limited by another undisclosed injury against Mississippi State, playing just 14 snaps and finishing with six rushes, one catch and 20 total yards. His status for Saturday is still unknown.
If Minnesota wants the Mississippi State game to fade into the background, it has to clean up both sides of the run game. Right now, that’s the clearest path out of the damage.
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