Sporting News: Minnesota football projected for pedestrian finish in 2026 Big Ten predictions

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New Running Back Coach, New WR Coach, New DL Coach, New Special Teams Coach, Add Limegrover to Offensive Line Coaches, Add Schula as an offensive assistant, retain both of our coordinators. To me, these are some signifcant changes that needed to be made. Yes, we return a good amount of quality players, yes we have some great additions from the portal and a few freshmen that will be able to help us immediately. But I think the changes on the coaching staff might be a huge difference maker for the Gophers in 2026.
 




Lifeleadership said:
New Running Back Coach, New WR Coach, New DL Coach, New Special Teams Coach, Add Limegrover to Offensive Line Coaches, Add Schula as an offensive assistant, retain both of our coordinators. To me, these are some signifcant changes that needed to be made. Yes, we return a good amount of quality players, yes we have some great additions from the portal and a few freshmen that will be able to help us immediately. But I think the changes on the coaching staff might be a huge difference maker for the Gophers in 2026.
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I have a slight concern that the new coaching additions will be taken an adjustment come real games and we could see a regression in some of those positions, at least in the first quarter to third of the season. WR, OL, and special teams can't really get much worse, but a step back with the D line in particular would suck.
 


IceBoxGopher said:
It's an extra lazy article because the writer doesn't even have an original thought. It's all based on the CBS Sports piece published earlier. One of use could write the same article based on Sporting News' coverage of CBS Sports' predictions.

According to Sporting News’ article, which itself was based on the 2026 game picks and win-loss predictions from CBS Sports analyst Brad Crawford, Minnesota is projected to finish with a pedestrian 6-6 overall record and a 4-5 mark in conference play. Sporting News reports that CBS Sports predicts Minnesota to take care of business when favored.

^ There. I just did the same thing the Sporting News writer did.
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Put it out there and get paid. These idiots are getting money for it, you should too. Then you can buy the beer when the Gophs make the playoffs.
 


TwistingMyMelon said:
But they've had horrible QBs before (remember Deacon Hill?) and still had a good season. We won't know until the season gets going.
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I have a hard time seeing Iowa being worse than an annoying as hell 6-6 even if deacon hill comes back for an extra season.
 

Back in the day, I’m older than sh@t, this stuff wasn’t written until late August or early September. Of course now we are playing games by then, but still, just need something to write about, so just go make it up! Sorry, been golfing and drinking.
 



TwistingMyMelon said:
But they've had horrible QBs before (remember Deacon Hill?) and still had a good season. We won't know until the season gets going.
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I guess it is a new era with the transfer portal, but I would think the larger issue would be the lack or returning productivity. They also bring back no one on special teams (coordinator took some players with him when he took a position at Michigan State).


We will see, but I like the under of the projected 6.5 win total.
 

GooningGopher said:
We will see, but I like the under of the projected 6.5 win total.
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I'm not high on them and I'm expecting that the Gophers will beat them this year. Still, I can't be too confident in predicting the failure of a program that has had one losing season since the turn of the century and has beaten the Gophers in 9 of the last 10 meetings.
 


The Gophers have two projected All Americans, a mature star RB and experienced quality starters at many positions, including QB. In a better spot than last year, I believe. This makes me think an 8 win regular season is a reasonable hope. The Mississippi State and Iowa games, both early in the schedule, could provide corroboration … or dash my hopes. Go Gophers.
 



Gophergrandpa said:
The Gophers have two projected All Americans, a mature star RB and experienced quality starters at many positions, including QB. In a better spot than last year, I believe. This makes me think an 8 win regular season is a reasonable hope. The Mississippi State and Iowa games, both early in the schedule, could provide corroboration … or dash my hopes. Go Gophers.
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First part of you post is correct. Gophers are in a very good spot relative to other trophy game opponents. 10-2 regular season, grandpa.
 

Gophergrandpa said:
10% maybe? Ferentz has a hex on PJ, and PJ has a hex of Fickell, regardless of venue.
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Harbaugh versus Parker is an even worse scenario than PJ v Kirk. What I would love to see out of our offense this year would be some recognition that surprising the defense with what play you are running is better than just saying these are the six players we run and we’re gonna beat you running them. That just doesn’t work post Mo.
 
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Gophergrandpa said:
The Gophers have two projected All Americans, a mature star RB and experienced quality starters at many positions, including QB. In a better spot than last year, I believe. This makes me think an 8 win regular season is a reasonable hope. The Mississippi State and Iowa games, both early in the schedule, could provide corroboration … or dash my hopes. Go Gophers.
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I love Taylor but he’s so injury prone.
 

MNVCGUY said:
I think what gets tiring as a Gopher fan is we rarely see the optimistic off season projection article. Not always but most of the time they seem to skew towards the worst case scenario as opposed to a positive outlook where the assumption is that some things will go right.

It is what it is.....it is all just off season filler anyway....just might be fun to get some of the undeserved hype teams like Wisconsin and Nebraska have gotten in recent years where the assumption is that things will go right even though that has not been the case for either program in recent years.
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To me, saying 6-6 and getting at least one thing right in the analysis wouldn't bother me. I don't think that's unreasonable, nor do I think it's guaranteed.

But when you say the lines are depleted, they're not. The D-line was surprisingly good given how pedestrian our Defense was last year, and it has some key pieces back. Even if we don't lead the B1G in Sacks and aren't #2 in TFLs, the d-line will likely be in the top half of the conference.

The O-line returns many people. Who struggled against a very, very, very weak B1G home schedule (except against Nebby). There isn't as big an imbalance in our schedule, allowing us to play 4 of the 5 worst teams by record in the B1G this year (maybe?), but what we lose in top tier, we also lose in bottom tier. The o-line is still our biggest concern, and the biggest flaw in Drake's game was he can't run like the wind when opposing D-lineman are on him on step 2 of his 3-step drop to dump the ball off at the LOS because our o-line sucked.

And taking someone else's predictions for us to beat Iowa and circle Purdue as a win so easily clearly hasn't even looked at the stat sheets from those games. The last 6 quarters we've played against Iowa have been abysmal, but since we play them at home this year, that's going to make a difference. They may want to rewatch the second half in 2024 on that one. The Purdue game was one where the difference between playing at home and at Purdue helped us pull that one out.

My guess is we'll still play the games, and we'll see what happens, I just hope the team shows up for more than two and a half conference games this year.
 
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caliGopher said:
And taking someone else's predictions for us to beat Iowa and circle Purdue as a win so easily clearly hasn't even looked at the stat sheets from those games. The last 6 quarters we've played against Iowa have been abysmal, but since we play them at home this year, that's going to make a difference. They may want to rewatch the second half in 2024 on that one. The Purdue game was one where the difference between playing at home and at Purdue helped us pull that one out.
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I think the more optimistic than usual view when it comes to playing Iowa this season comes from the fact that Iowa lost so many good players after last season (to the NFL, eligibility, and portal) and they've taken numerous transfers from FCS schools. Of course, we've taken our fair share of FCS players in the past (took some this year too) and some of them turned out to be pretty good. There is also the uncertainty of the QB situation. The purported leading candidate, Jeremy Hecklinsk, is a RS soph who has two passing attempts in his career. The other leading candidate, Hank Brown, is older and more experienced but has played in only 8 games over three years.

Still, one can't be too confident when facing a team that you are 1-9 against in the last 10 contests.

I agree that the game against Purdue last season was too close for comfort but if we can't beat a team (even on the road) that hasn't won a conference game during the last two seasons we're going to have a really long season with the upcoming schedule.

I think most Gopher fans expect this year's team to be better than last year's based on additional maturity of key players and some potentially valuable transfers.
 
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I don't get all the pessimism on the projected record sites. While the overall schedule is a bit tougher, last year had two guaranteed wins and two guaranteed losses and 8 toss-ups of varying degrees. This year has two guaranteed wins and one guaranteed loss, maybe. And PJ usually wins his share of the toss-ups.
 

howeda7 said:
I don't get all the pessimism on the projected record sites. While the overall schedule is a bit tougher, last year had two guaranteed wins and two guaranteed losses and 8 toss-ups of varying degrees. This year has two guaranteed wins and one guaranteed loss, maybe. And PJ usually wins his share of the toss-ups.
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I think we should be higher rated at this point if for no other reason than we return a larger number of starters and regular contributors than most teams according to those who have tabulated such things. I do think the schedule is tougher this season because we play 5 potential top 25 to 30 teams whereas we played only 3 last season and we have only four conference home games. It's certainly possible that some of those top 25 to 30 teams will be weaker than last season but we can't count on that at this point.
 

howeda7 said:
I don't get all the pessimism on the projected record sites. While the overall schedule is a bit tougher, last year had two guaranteed wins and two guaranteed losses and 8 toss-ups of varying degrees. This year has two guaranteed wins and one guaranteed loss, maybe. And PJ usually wins his share of the toss-ups.
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I agree.
Washington’s best conference win last year was Illinois. Second best was maybe Rutgers? Also had a loss to Wisconsin
Penn state was 7-6 and now has Iowa states 8-4 roster
Michigan could be great or could be a shit show.
Indiana could be great or could come back down to being just good.
Iowa at home lost everything
Wisconsin maybe have an interim by the time they play.
Purdue isn’t free but isn’t good
UCLA at home in November and they weren’t a bowl team last year
Northwestern at home will be tough but a toss up probably (or if the defense shows up won’t be a toss up)

I see 3 probable losses (Indiana, Michigan, Penn state (but only because it’s on the road))
A few 40-60 games (Iowa, Washington)
And a bunch of 60-40 games (Purdue, northwestern, UCLA,
A free win (Wisconsin)

Makes those 3 probably losses 20% chance of victory and my expected conference wins this year is 5.2
I will guess 8-4 (5-4)
Anything less than 5-4 will disappoint me
A loss to a non conference team will disappoint me but not as much as a loss that makes them 4-5
Get to 6-3 and I can forgive a non conference loss and call it a success. But better not because 9-3 they could be in the playoff conversation late in the year.
 

TwistingMyMelon said:
I think we should be higher rated at this point if for no other reason than we return a larger number of starters and regular contributors than most teams according to those who have tabulated such things. I do think the schedule is tougher this season because we play 5 potential top 25 to 30 teams whereas we played only 3 last season and we have only four conference home games. It's certainly possible that some of those top 25 to 30 teams will be weaker than last season but we can't count on that at this point.
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I don’t think we have to look much further than our rushing offense rankings the past two years somewhere around 110th in the country, I believe. Brosmer was a god send two years ago and last year we made just enough plays to avoid kind of a disastrous season. If we can run the ball game in and game out we could have a special season. A repeat of the last two years and we are due for the run game struggles to catch up to us.
 

Gopherchase said:
I don’t think we have to look much further than our rushing offense rankings the past two years somewhere around 110th in the country, I believe. Brosmer was a god send two years ago and last year we made just enough plays to avoid kind of a disastrous season. If we can run the ball game in and game out we could have a special season. A repeat of the last two years and we are due for the run game struggles to catch up to us.
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You could also say we are due to be better in the run game. But I agree


Defense we kind of no what to expect. I expect above average but not all conference level QB play.

If we can run, we can win 8-10 games.

If we can’t, 5-7 wins
 

Gopherchase said:
I don’t think we have to look much further than our rushing offense rankings the past two years somewhere around 110th in the country, I believe. Brosmer was a god send two years ago and last year we made just enough plays to avoid kind of a disastrous season. If we can run the ball game in and game out we could have a special season. A repeat of the last two years and we are due for the run game struggles to catch up to us.
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I agree, and in my opinion, our running game will directly impact the overall development of Lindsay for the good or the bad.
 

Gopherchase said:
I don’t think we have to look much further than our rushing offense rankings the past two years somewhere around 110th in the country, I believe. Brosmer was a god send two years ago and last year we made just enough plays to avoid kind of a disastrous season. If we can run the ball game in and game out we could have a special season. A repeat of the last two years and we are due for the run game struggles to catch up to us.
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Well said! Max and the leading receivers could move the chains well enough to compensate for the lack of running game. Still, we might have had 9 regular season wins that season if we could have run the ball since our defense was really good that year. We had 38 rushing yards (1.5 per attempt) against Michigan and 35 rushing yards (1.8 per attempt) against Rutgers and those were both one score games.
 

MonikerSchmoniker45 said:
If the O- line figures it out I really think 9 wins is the floor.
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We should have four returning starters on the line, three if Bret Carroll emerges at Center and kicks Beers back to RG. Good options 1-3 at WR, some talented young guys battling for back up reps. running back depth might be concern but I think if Taylor is healthy we have intriguing depth pieces. TE will be interesting but between Walsh, Simpson and Johnson they've all been in the program for three years and we have Voss coming in
 

Gopherchase said:
Harbaugh versus Parker is an even worse scenario than PJ v Kirk. What I would love to see out of our offense this year would be some recognition that surprising the defense with what play you are running is better than just saying these are the six players we run and we’re gonna beat you running them. That just doesn’t work post Mo.
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I don't think our offense is nearly the same as it was with Mo, but I agree that we could mix up what we do a little bit better, if the oline take a step with three potentially four returning starters if you count Nelson, hopefully gives Harbaugh more confidence in his options. Parker is an elite DC, but at the end of the day big time players need to make big time plays
 

Some guy said:
I have a hard time seeing Iowa being worse than an annoying as hell 6-6 even if deacon hill comes back for an extra season.
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I'd be willing to bet Iowa goes 7-5 at the absolute worst. I would take the over at 7.5 in vegas.
 

The Deliberate Stranger said:
I don't think our offense is nearly the same as it was with Mo, but I agree that we could mix up what we do a little bit better, if the oline take a step with three potentially four returning starters if you count Nelson, hopefully gives Harbaugh more confidence in his options. Parker is an elite DC, but at the end of the day big time players need to make big time plays
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I think Taylor is a better overall all around back than Mo. But our line is WAY worse and we have no WR's to take the pressure of the running game.
 

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