Welcome To Week 6: Minnesota

OPPONENT: Minnesota (3-1, 1-0 Big Ten)

Ohio State is coming off of its first Big Ten win this season, beating Washington 24-6 at Husky Stadium. Minnesota also picked up its first conference victory on Saturday, hosting Rutgers for a 31-28 victory after coming back from an early 14-0 deficit.

The Golden Gophers and head coach P.J. Fleck have yet again built another respectable Big Ten team that can at the very least call itself a game that the top tier teams can’t just skate by in when they match up.

Quarterback Drake Lindsey has shown promise as the starter in his redshirt freshman season, completing 77 of 117 passes for 958 yards, seven touchdowns and two interceptions.

“As far as the accuracy, seeing things the right way, conversation in between drives, it was elite,” said offensive coordinator Greg Harbaugh Jr., of no relation to former Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh. “He saw everything the way that we were seeing it. Him and I were aligned completely. It’s the way I would like a first game to go.”

He has had to rely on multiple different running backs in the backfield with him so far. Darius Taylor has been out with an injury for two straight weeks and might not suit up against Ohio State. But Fame Ijeboi has filled in well, rushing 35 times for 173 yards and one touchdown, which came in the win over the Scarlet Knights.

Lindsey will be passing to Javon Tracy — the Gophers’ leader in receiving yards this season through four games with 204 from 12 catches with two touchdowns — Jalen Smtih, Le’Meke Brockington, Drew Biber and Jameson Geers. The offense does well spreading the ball around, but have not had to deal with a secondary that has Davison Igbinosun, Jermaine Mathews Jr., Caleb Downs, Jaylen McClain and Lorenzo Styles Jr. in it yet.

The Buckeye pass rush will also be looking for another big game. The Minnesota offensive line has only allowed seven sacks through four games, but the Buckeyes just sacked Demond Williams Jr. six times in its victory over the Huskies, with Caden Curry picking up three of those on his own.

The Minnesota pass rush has also fared well this season, but it will meet its match against an Ohio State offensive line that has allowed two sacks this year and has been very good in pass protection. The Golden Gophers have been a strong team defensively overall to this point despite giving up 31 points on Saturday to Rutgers.

After four games, they rank No. 25 in scoring defense and No. 9 in total defense, and they have been very successful at stopping the run and the pass through four games at fifth and 23^rd in the country, respectively.

Defensive coordinator Danny Collins — who worked his way up from living in a storage closet at the Western Michigan football facility as a volunteer for Fleck’s program a decade ago — has done that with his “HAVOC” approach, which is an acronym he coined for his defense.

The H stands for “how much effort” the defense will play with, the A is for “attacking style,” the V is for “violence,” the O is for “playing as one” and the C is for its level of competition.

“I know exactly how they play the game and how exactly we can plug them into a scheme to create that HAVOC defense,” said Collins before the season, when asked why he was a better option to be the new DC of the Gophers than an outside hire would have been.

The biggest part of that defense has been safety Koi Perich, who was a first-team All-Big Ten selection last season as a true freshman. Perich was a recruit whom Ohio State desperately tried to flip toward the end of the 2024 cycle, unsuccessfully.

He made 46 tackles last year (2½ for loss), broke up three passes, had five interceptions and forced one fumble to also be named a second-team All-American by Sporting News. This season, Perich has 21 tackles, two for loss, and a sack through four games.

He has also been used on the offensive side of the ball, which the Gophers planned to do often. He has run the ball once for minus-9 yards and caught three passes for 55 yards so far.

But in the Gophers’ 27-14 loss to Cal on Sept. 13, Perich had the worst game of his college career, being involved in negative plays on offense, defense and special teams.

“All great players go through adversity,” Fleck said after the loss. “This is probably his first piece of adversity in the 15 months that he has been here. Adversity strengthens you if you use it properly. You swallow the pill of adversity, and you take accountability and responsibility for it. We all do. It’s going to make you better.”

He came back from that performance with 11 total tackles (four solo) and a sack in the Gophers’ 31-28 win over Rutgers on Sept. 27.

The Goper offense could try to control the clock in Ohio Stadium and make it a low possession game, which could be its best chance to keep the game close. But Ohio State showed that it can still comfotably win games like that against Washington, needing just six offensive drives in the contest.

But while Fleck has turned Minnesota into a fairly stable program, the goal for the Gophers is still to rise to the top of the Big Ten, which can’t happen unless they can compete in games like they play in Columbus on Oct. 4. A solid performance even in a loss to Ohio State would be a sign of more progress.

PLAYERS TO WATCH

• SAF Koi Perich — Perich is a do-it-all player, quite literally. He is great defensively, and has been on the offensive side of the ball for the Gophers, and is also their punt returner and has broke off great runs on returns, which Ohio State will need to be prepared for.
• RB Darius Taylor — If Taylor is healthy for the game, he could provide a spark to the Minnesota offense that it needs on the ground.
• QB Drake Lindsey — Lindsey needs more experience before he takes the next step, but there is a lot of potential the young QB could still tap into. He could flash that against the Buckeyes.

SERIES HISTORY: This will be the 55th time these two teams play each other since Minnesota has been in the Big Ten conference since its inception in 1896. Ohio State has dominated the series with 47 wins and 7 losses. The last loss was in 2000, when John Cooper’s Buckeye squad fell to the Gophers in his last season at Ohio State. The last time the two teams played, Ohio State beat Minnesota 37-3, with Dragan Kesich helping the team avoid being shutout with a 50-plus yard field goal.

Check back every Monday at BuckeyeSports.com for a brief preview of the Buckeyes’ upcoming opponent, with stories and features throughout the week.

_{Photo courtesy of Minnesota Athletics}