Drake Lindsey had a coming-out party on Saturday. The redshirt freshman from Arkansas completed over 75% of his passes, threw three touchdowns, had over 300 yards passing and led a 4th quarter comeback
against a Big Ten opponent. Leading to Lindsey earning Big Ten Freshman of the Week honors and Gopher Nation getting very excited about their new quarterback.
We are just four games in, and there is good reason to be very excited about Lindsey’s Gopher career. There will be ups and downs (next week in Columbus might be interesting), but the talent is there and he’s showing early signs that he not only can pass the ball, but he can read a defense and be a leader as well.
But TMP is here today because Lindsey isn’t the only reason to be excited about the future of Gopher football.
Obviously, having an elite quarterback is imperative to being an elite college football team. You can win with a great running game along with a stout defense. But having a stud under center makes a huge difference, especially when the game is on the line.
But there is also an impressive foundation of talent being built around Lindsey. I’m not sure that this 2025 Gopher team is exactly “young,” but there are number of young players who are making significant contributions. And they may very well be really good in a couple of seasons.
On the offense we have talked about the quarterback, and he will have potentially three more seasons of eligibilty after this one. But the same can be said for the starting left tackle, arguably the team’s best and the best healthy running back.
Nathan Roy is starting at LT as a redshirt freshman, and he’s been playing very well. He is playing the most important spot along the offensive line and protecting Lindsey’s blindspot. A position typically occupied by an upperclassman, but Roy has secured it with three years left to play. His future is very bright.
Fame was probably the team’s third running back to start the season, but with injuries to Darius Taylor and AJ Turner, he’s been getting more carries than expected. And he has looked very good. When Taylor comes back, his carries will diminish, but he looks like a future starting-caliber back who will rack up a lot of yards.
And we can’t forget about Jalen Smith, Lindsey’s big-play target this past Saturday. Javon Tracy and Le’Meke Brocking have had more receptions, but Smith is playing a lot and looking stronger and stronger every game. There have been a few drops, but he also has the two longest receptions of the season for the Gophers.
All four of those players have been fully involved, if not critical to the offense’s success. But there are more.
Jacob Simpson is a tight end who has played in all four games and has four years remaining. And if you expand this to players who have three years to play (2025 plus two more), you see a number of other young players are seeing regular playing time as sophomores. I’m talking about Kendric Lanier, Pierce Walsh and Kahlee Tafai as players who are playing; even if those names aren’t cause for excitement yet.
And moving to the defense…there are some really exciting players over there who are freshmen or sophomores.
This list obviously starts at safety, where the Gophers may have the Big Ten’s best safety duo. And both are just sophomores. Koi Perich has an All-American type season as a true freshman and is making plays again this year on defense, offense and special teams. He is capable of impacting the outcome of a game like no other Gopher defender. But don’t forget about Kerry Brown, he is also outstanding. He changed the momentum of the game with his interception on Saturday, while also making a couple of nice deflections in tight coverage.
I expect both of these safeties will be playing in the NFL sooner than later. But there’s more.
Emmanuel Karmo is a name that has not received a lot of attention this season, but his starting to make plays. Like being in 1:1 coverage on Rutger’s top receiver (a likely NFL caliber receiver) down the sideline and breakingup the pass in the end zone. That’s true freshman in his first Big Ten game making that play.
Two more freshmen are part of the defensive rotation in Mike Gerald and Adam Kissay. Gerald was injured for the first two games but has four tackles and two broken up passes in his two games against P4 competition. And Kissay, the Clemson transfer, is playing as part of the defensive line rotation.
And we have a handful of sophomores, besides the two safeties, who are contributing. Jason Howard is seeing a lot of snaps and has one sack this season. Za’Quan Bryan is starting in the defensive backfield. Karter Menz is playing on the regular and had a sack on Saturday. And Matt Kingsbury is making plays all over the field with a half-sack and THREE fumble recoveries.
The point is not necessarily just to list young players who are playing. The reason for enthusiasm and optimism is that the recruiting and development is paying off. This team has eight starters and 17 major contributors with three or four years of eligibility remaining.
The caveat will always exist that the transfer portal will come into play for some of these guys, but we can’t worry about that at this point.
There is reason for optimism with this team, particularly as we look ahead. It starts with the quarterback, without a doubt. But it doesn’t end there. I equally excited that we have a few years with exciting players at LT, WR, S, CB, DL, RB and LB.
The talent-floor of this team continues to come up. But the truly exciting part is that you can see the ceiling raised as well.
