The win over Northwestern State was possibly more dominating than expected and it was really nice to not have to sweat out a game. But it doesn’t mean much. It is a win. We were 1-0 in the NW State Demons week and we are not a 2-0 team.
But The Monday Perspective is looking forward. Looking forward to two key stretches of the season that will define what level of success this team achieves. Four the team’s
next five games are going to be critical. I realize that within the halls of the Athlete’s Village, they are focused on being 1-0 for Cal Week. But TMP is looking ahead and trying to get excited about this season, here is how TMP is breaking it down.
The next two games are games where Minnesota will be favored to win, but not by much. It starts with this week’s trip to Berkley to face Cal where the Gophers begin the week as 2.5 point favorites. The Cal Bears are not particularly strong, coming off a 2-6 season in the ACC and having been hit fairly hard in the transfer portal this past offseason. Is this game a lock? Not remotely, but being favored over another P4 program on the road is an indication that this is a game Minnesota can win.
Cal is not a team that I fear, but they are also going to be the best team we have faced in this short season. Having to travel across the country to play a P4 team that is also 2-0 is no easy task. It should be mentioned that the Bears had Miami left for dead on the side of the road last season, before Cam Ward pulled off some magic for a 39-38 epic comeback. This team will be no pushover.
Following the Cal game, Minnesota returns home to face Rutgers in their Big Ten opener. This is another game where the Gophers are likely to be favored, slightly. This is a team that beat Minnesota a year ago, there is a lot of familiarity on both sidelines and should be a close game. The best news here is that Minnesota will have two weeks to prepare for this game, having a bye during week 4 of the season while Rutgers is hosting Iowa.
The familiarity between these programs seems to teeter between mutual respect and contempt. It had an odd vibe last season and will have that similar vibe this year when Athan Kaliakmanis comes back to The Bank to face his old team. Again, not a team that I fear, but a team that can absolutely go back home with a win.
These two games are big. Favored, but not heavily. One on the road and one at home for a conference game. It is easy to be intimately familiar with your own team, see that we are favored, not think much of the helmet of the opponent and assume wins. Do I think the Gophers win both of these games? I do. But more importantly than my predictions, they have to have these games if they want to push beyond being a middling-Big Ten team this season. Getting to six or seven wins (SIX-SEVEN) this year is very realistic. But getting to nine? That makes this season different. These games have to be wins.
From there the Gophers travel to Ohio State. I think we can assume this is a loss. The key here is go prove you can be on the same field, make this competitive. Walking into The Horseshoe as a 4-0 team and leaving with a competitive game doesn’t damage your 2025 season.
I’ll gloss over the homecoming game against Purdue and assume this is a win. The Boilermakers are a Big Ten team, but a 4-1 (assuming they are 4-1) Gopher team at home, should beat this year’s iteration of Purdue.
But then comes the real test. Back-to-back games against Nebraska at home and at Iowa. Two games where our Gophers will be the underdog, slightly.
Nebraska is vastly overrated every offseason. They are the annual “dark-horse” to challenge at the top of the Big Ten. And they find a way to finish 5-7 every year, having lost five straight games to Minnesota. Again…easy to assume a win here, having not lost to the Huskers at home since 2015. And while I’m not buying the hype, this team is going to be better. There’s talent here and they finally have a coach who is capable of leading a program.
This could be a matchup of 5-1 teams and this game concerns me. Win here (along with those Cal/Rutgers games) and all of a sudden the Gophers are a part of the national conversation.
The Husker game is followed by a trip to Iowa City and a battle with the Hawkeyes. Is Minnesota coming into this 6-1 or 3-4?
The demise of the Hawkeyes is often exaggerated in the early part of the season. The offense struggled (shocker) in their win over Albany and then they managed just 13 points as they lost to rival, Iowa State. But we all know that Kirk Ferentz will have this team playing better throughout the season and they can win with punting just as easily as they can with offense.
Is this winnable for the Gophers? Certainly. And I’m not interested in making predictions today, but the point is that this two-game stretch is what can separate a good season from an elite one. These upcoming 2-game stretches are going to be huge. I’m not totally ignoring Purdue, Michigan St and Northwestern; but proving your worth in these four identified games should put you in a category above the rest of the noise. And then we host Wisconsin to finish out the season.
It starts this weekend at Cal, and you can’t win all four of these games at the same time. But these two-game stretches are going to be how this season is defined.
Looking forward to beating the Golden Bears and carrying that momentum into a Rutgers win. Then we can start to get excited.
