The Gophers football team prepares to take on No. 8 University of Oregon at Autzen Stadium on Nov. 14.
This will be the Gophers’ fifth time playing the Ducks, but their first time since the team joined the Big Ten Conference last season. This past week, the Gophers had a bye week following a narrow overtime win against Michigan State.
Gophers offensive coordinator Greg Harbaugh Jr. said during the bye week, the offense talked about three main things to improve on. The first one is the ball.
“We wanted to protect the football,” Harbaugh said. “That was one thing that against Michigan State we had the two balls on the ground during the final drive that bounced our way.”
The Gophers will face a Ducks team that clearly outdoes them on the stat sheet. So far, the Gophers offense has 988 total rushing yards, 283 passing attempts, 176 completions and seven interceptions. The Ducks have 2,157 rushing yards, 244 passing attempts, 171 completions and five interceptions.
Minnesota’s record at home this year is 6-0, but on the road, they struggled and are 0-3.
A repeated phrase, Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck restated that the team is just looking to be 1-0.
“Home, away, it’s not about that, it’s about playing the best football,” Fleck said. “We played some really good football at home, we played some really good teams on the road. We just gotta find a way to be a little bit better each week.”
The Gophers have suffered a few player injuries this season, the most notable being junior running back Darius Taylor. Taylor initially got hurt during the second game of the season against Northwestern State University.
Since then, he has been in and out of games; he missed two games against the University of California-Berkeley and Rutgers University, and executed a single rush against the University of Iowa before leaving and not returning. It is unclear if Taylor will be on the field in Oregon.
However, one of the big points Fleck stressed during his preview of the game was making sure players get healthy mentally, physically and emotionally.
“It’s not just a physical piece, when you get to November, it’s the mental piece, the emotional piece,” Fleck said. “There is a lot of demand on student athletes from a lot of different areas.”
The Ducks’ head coach, Dan Lanning, is in his fourth year as Oregon’s head coach and has led Oregon to a 35-6 overall record. Oregon is the fourth-highest Name, Image and Likeness spender in college football.
Lanning said the Gophers’ defense does a great job getting after the quarterback.
“They do a good variety of things on defense; there are a lot of change-ups,” Lanning said. “When they get to advantageous situations to rush the passer, they take advantage of it.”
After the bye week, the Gophers still lead the Big Ten in sacks with a total of 32. The Gophers are one ahead of No. 2 Indiana.
Gophers redshirt freshman quarterback Drake Lindsey said playing at Oregon is a great opportunity.
“This is one of the games when you are looking at the schedule, one of the ones you circle,” Lindsey said. “It’s a dream come true to be able to play at that stadium and play against that team; it’s just another opportunity for us to go play a clean game and execute at a high level.”
