The Minnesota Golden Gophers are heading into Big Ten play with a late-night trip to Seattle, where they’ll face No. 23 Washington on Saturday at Husky Stadium.
Kickoff is set for 10 p.m. Central time, which means an 8 p.m. start on the West Coast. FOX 9 will carry the game.
Minnesota enters at 2-1 after closing non-conference play with a 41-7 win over Akron. In that game, Drake Lindsey threw for 204 yards and three touchdowns, while the Gophers added 191 rushing yards and two more scores. Minnesota built a 20-0 halftime lead and held Akron to 221 total yards and one touchdown.
Washington is 3-0 and comes in ranked No. 23.
The Huskies have already beaten Washington State 24-10, Utah State 16-14 and Eastern Washington 48-14 last week. The source notes that Washington played for a national championship just three seasons ago.
This is also familiar territory for Minnesota in one respect: late-night road games. Last season, the Gophers went to California for a non-conference night game and lost 27-14, then later played a night game at Oregon and fell 42-13.
For fans looking for more before kickoff, FOX 9 will air The P.J. Fleck Show, with Pierre Noujaim, KFAN sideline reporter Justin Gaard and Gophers analyst Ron Johnson joining Coach Fleck to break down the Akron win and preview Washington.
FOX 9 will also carry the Gopher Pre-Game Show from 9-10 p.m. CT Saturday.
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 🡒]
Do The Gophers Still Look Like A Bowl Team
With conference play beginning, Minnesota finds itself in the middle of the early Big Ten bowl picture, and the projections around the league are already starting to settle in. Week 3 brought a fresh round of postseason guesses for Big Ten teams, and the Gophers were part of that conversation as analysts tried to sort out which programs still look like realistic bowl teams and which ones have work to do once league play gets rolling.
The bigger backdrop is a conference that has already taken some dents in non-conference play, with Ohio State's loss to Texas and Oregon's uneven start adding to the uncertainty. For Minnesota, the question is less about where the Gophers would land and more about whether they can keep themselves in the bowl mix as the schedule stiffens, because the early projections are clearly not unanimous about their path. [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 🡒]