Minnesota keeps giving its fans Saturdays worth remembering, and the latest one at Huntington Bank Stadium fit right into that run.
PJ Fleck and the Gophers turned another elite home football experience into a full-on scene, with the atmosphere cranking up from the opening stretch and never really letting go. It was tense for all four quarters, then everything broke open at the end. The team rushed Floyd, the fans stormed the field, and the place delivered the kind of surge that makes college football feel bigger than the scoreboard.
That kind of day is exactly why it’s getting harder to treat preseason predictions as anything more than guesses. Minnesota has already stacked up results that didn’t look likely a few months ago.
The Gophers went on the road and beat Washington after not winning a road game last season. They knocked off Michigan at home, a team Minnesota beats less than once a decade.
Fleck, who had been 1-8 against Iowa, found a way to get that huge win too.
The strange part is that the game most people probably circled as a more manageable one - Purdue - ended up as a loss.
So now the schedule feels like a rolling series of coin flips. The rest of the Big Ten slate doesn’t offer much room for confidence, and the first four conference games already proved how quickly things can change. The matchups that looked easy before the season started have been anything but, while some of the games that seemed like near-certain losses have turned out to be far more playable.
Indiana comes next, and it’s the least likely Minnesota win left on the board. Still, the Hoosiers have shown cracks. They managed just six points in regulation at Michigan, and while the offense isn’t the same with Josh Hoover under center, that defense is elite.
UCLA is sitting at No. 7 after a stunning turnaround from last season, when the Bruins were terrible. They’ve even received one first-place vote in the Coaches Poll, and they’ve kept winning with starting quarterback Nico Iamaleava out. Minnesota gets that one at home, but it means back-to-back top-10 opponents are coming through the door.
Penn State follows on the road, and despite the down year, it’s still a trip to face a roster full of talented kids. In a twist, that might be Minnesota’s most likely remaining win.
Northwestern is next, and the Wildcats are another surprise. The game is at home, which matters, and David Braun is 2-0 against Fleck - but both of those losses were by three points and both came on the road. Northwestern will also tell us a lot about itself over the next three weeks with Oregon, Iowa and Ohio State on deck.
Then there’s Wisconsin, ranked No. 25 and now 5-2, which is a long way from the assumed win it looked like before the season began.
That’s the bigger picture now. Minnesota has shown it can hang with anybody, but it has also shown enough rough edges to make certainty impossible. The remaining stretch is brutal, and every game feels like something between a toss-up and a test.
Still, the Gophers have already beaten Washington, Michigan and Iowa. They’ve taken the Little Brown Jug and Floyd of Rosedale.
They’ve already created a couple of Saturdays that will stick around long after the final record fades into the background. And if they can hold onto Paul Bunyan’s Axe, this season will land as something special no matter whether it ends with six wins or seven.
In Other News...
Gophers Fans Will Love This Floyd Of Rosedale Celebration Moment
The Gophers got more than a hard-fought 13-10 win over Iowa on Saturday. They got Floyd of Rosedale back, and the postgame celebration matched the moment, with the trophy carried through a crowd of Minnesota fans before the team later made room for it in the trophy cases alongside the rest of the rivalry hardware. Luke Drzewieckis two field goals were enough to earn him Big Ten special teams player of the week, a fitting footnote for a game decided by the kind of details these Border Battle showdowns usually turn on.
One of the more memorable scenes from the celebration quickly made the rounds online, adding a family touch to a rivalry trophy that already means plenty in Minnesota. It was the kind of image that fit the mood around the program after the win, and the sort of thing that tends to linger long after the scoreboard is forgotten, even as the Gophers keep moving through a week that has them looking at Floyd a little differently again. [Read more 🡒]
Gophers Beat Iowa With A Formula Hawkeyes Fans Know Too Well
Minnesotas win over No. 15 Iowa looked a lot like the kind of game Hawkeyes fans have spent years expecting to control. The Gophers leaned on defense, special teams and sheer toughness to take back the Floyd of Rosedale trophy, while Iowa never found the sort of offensive rhythm needed to turn field position and pressure into points.
The tone of the afternoon changed early with a blocked punt on Iowas opening possession, and Minnesota kept making the kind of gritty plays that tend to decide this rivalry. Iowa finished with four turnovers and few big plays to fall back on, while Luke Drzewieckis long field goal gave the Gophers a crucial cushion they would not surrender. [Read more 🡒]
Gophers Suddenly Have A National Spotlight And Bigger Stakes Saturday
Minnesota heads into Saturday with a little more national attention than usual, as ESPNs College GameDay will set up on the Indiana campus for the Gophers matchup with No. 6 Indiana at Memorial Stadium. Its the kind of stage that brings extra eyes, extra noise and a reminder that a late-season Big Ten game can carry far beyond the usual conference stakes.
For P.J. Flecks group, it also adds a familiar wrinkle to an unfamiliar setting. This is the second time Minnesota has been part of College GameDay under Fleck, though this time the Gophers are the road team, and they arrive with some momentum after last weeks 13-10 win over Iowa. That victory gave Minnesota multiple rivalry trophies at once for the first time since 1978, and now the challenge is carrying that energy into one of the leagues biggest road environments. [Read more 🡒]