I may have to do a real mea culpa on the Minnesota Golden Gophers this year.
While touting Fresno State to beat Minnesota earlier this season, I wrote, “The defending Mountain West champs from Fresno State are a (+140) underdog wager to beat visiting Minnesota late on Saturday night. Power-5 prejudice is at work. There is no objective reason to consider the Bulldogs a true underdog against the Gophers…except that the Gophers are coached by P.J. Fleck and play in the Big Ten.Try an experiment. Write down “Fresno State 35, Minnesota 17” on a piece of paper and yell “Big Ten!” and “P.J. Fleck!” at it to see if it changes.”
Hmph. How wrong can a pundit be? My only alibi is that Fresno State is no slouch – the Bulldogs have been the finest team in the FBS against point spreads over the past few years.
But there can be no mistake about it – P.J. Fleck is indeed changing things at Minnesota.
The Golden Gophers have faced 4 programs which are all underrated in their own ways – the speedy FCS outfit from South Dakota State, the deceptive Georgia Southern Eagles, the Bulldogs (whom they needed OT to vanquish) and Purdue. Any Ws in the Big Ten are good news for a team on the way up, and Purdue fell 38-31 to mark the 4th-straight 1-score-or-less triumph for Fleck’s unbeaten charges.
Minnesota will host Illinois this Saturday, a school which has managed a heartening start in a pressure-filled season. If things go badly for another autumn, the Fighting Illini will face a head coaching change and upheaval.
Who: Illinois Fighting Illini at Minnesota Golden Gophers
When: Saturday, October 5th, 3:30 PM EST
Where: TCF Bank Stadium, Minneapolis, MN
Lines: Illinois (+14) at Minnesota (-14) / O/U Total: (57)
The Gophers’ run to 4-0 hasn’t been easy, but that’s the point. Minnesota is a more-flexible and dynamic beast now, with many weapons at hand with which to compete in tight 2nd halves.
For instance, the offense now has a legitimate passing attack led by redshirt sophomore QB Tanner Morgan.
Morgan was a 3-star recruit out of Kentucky, but Fleck and the kid have a tight relationship. Boosters are telling a tale – perhaps apocryphal – that Morgan was on his way to Western Michigan for a visit, and when the news broke that Fleck was on his way to Minnesota, Morgan simply turned the car around and followed him there. Morgan was nearly perfect against Purdue, completing 21-of-22 passes for 396 yards and 4 TD’s. The Gophers have an NFL caliber WR in senior Tyler Johnson, and possibly another talent emerging in sophomore speedster Rashod Bateman out of Georgia. Those are pretty legit targets for an accurate young QB.
Minnesota’s defense must prove that it can take advantage of opposing weakness to get way out ahead against a conference rival, and in Saturday’s case that involves putting a pass rush on Brandon Peters and making the visiting QB less-than comfortable in the pocket.
Pressure is building for the 2-2 Illini. Games against Michigan and Wisconsin are looming. Worse yet there’s a perception that Lovie Smith’s message is played-out among the student-athletes. Illinois was superb in taking a lead over Nebraska, but the Huskers fought back and scored 15 points in the final frame to pull out a 42-38 road victory.
Peters has played well against lesser opponents, but looks to be overwhelmed by Big Ten secondaries. FanSided kind of downplays the concern in my opinion:
Peters had great games against Akron and UConn in week one and week two. He struggled for a lot of the game against Eastern Michigan, but we still had a chance to win that game. The only contest that made me worry about Peters was against Nebraska.
The Cornhuskers don’t have a great defense, but Peters finished the game 9-of-22 for 78 yards, 1 touchdown and 1 interception. Those numbers aren’t going to win very many games for this program. He is allowed bad games at times, but this can’t carry over into the Minnesota game.
The Gophers would like nothing better than to intercept the Illini signal-caller as they picked-off Purdue QB Jack Plummer (Jack Plummer’s backups Jeff Elway and Patton Manning not being available, I suppose). But the Minnesota pass rush hasn’t been all that much to write home about so far, despite a number of coverage-sacks during long shoot-outs.
I feel similarly about this game as I did about a Dallas Cowboys vs New York Giants scrum earlier this NFL season. The Cowboys were a lock to win, but their opponents sure seemed like a high-% pick to cover.
Unlikely that Gopher Nation will suffer a defeat at home. But the roster hasn’t yet proven it can blow anyone out, not a Big Ten opponent with desperation in its heart. Lovie Smith, after all, is pretty good at keeping games close which his team is losing in – we know that from his career at multiple levels.
Take the Illini to cover (+14) and consider the Under (57) on what could be a tense 4 quarters.