Minnesota’s second half schedule is, not surprisingly, considerably more difficult than the first. The good news is that the Gophers do avoid both Ohio State and Penn State in cross-divisional play.<\/p>\n
It gets off to an easy enough start with a home game against Illinois. The Illini struggled mightily last season and will have a young team. Unless they improve drastically in season two under coach Lovie Smith<\/strong>, this should be another conference win for Minnesota.<\/p>\n Next up is a trip to Kinnick Stadium. Minnesota battled hard in a 14-7 loss to Iowa a year ago. The Hawkeyes have a lot of experienced upperclassmen on the roster, albeit not at quarterback. They’re absolutely stacked on the offensive line and at linebacker. This is the first opponent with a good chance to stop the Gophers’ run game. Unless Minnesota can air it out more consistently and accurately than I expect, this will be their first loss of the season.<\/p>\n The Gophers escaped both Michigan and Ohio State on the schedule a year ago. No such luck this season. They avoid the Buckeyes, but have to make a trip to the Big House to face Jim Harbaugh’s<\/strong> squad. On the bright side, the Wolverines lost quite a few players to graduation and the NFL, including 10 starters on defense. The offensive line is thin as well. This could very well be a down year for Michigan, and while I’m predicting a Wolverine win, I wouldn’t be surprised if this game is a close one.<\/p>\n This is another game that, a year ago, was much closer than many expected as Minnesota fell 24-17. Nebraska has a lot of returning starters, and should be a good if not elite team in year three under coach Mike Riley<\/strong>. I hate to start the season by predicting a three-game losing streak for the Gophers, but…<\/p>\n Barring injury, Northwestern should be pretty good this season. The Wildcats got off to a rocky start in 2016 by losing to Western Michigan, and finished a disappointing 6-6. Fifteen of last year’s starters are back, and a slightly easier schedule has me expecting to see Northwestern back in the neighborhood of seven or eight wins. However, I don’t think this will be one of them. Minnesota will rally after a tough stretch and get to eight wins.<\/p>\n You know the saying- in a rivalry game, throw the records out the window. Minnesota actually led much of this game last season, until a 21-point fourth quarter gave the Badgers a 31-17 win. Like Northwestern, Wisconsin has a lot of starters back from a squad that played in the Big Ten Championship a year ago. The game is<\/em> in Minneapolis, but I regret to say that Paul Bunyan’s Axe will remain in Madison for at least one more year.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Minnesota’s second half schedule will tell us a lot more about the team than the first. I’ll be interested to see how they respond to adversity under new coach P.J. Fleck<\/strong>, and with a passing game that may struggle. With a new coaching staff, two untested quarterbacks, and a host of new players on defense, this is arguably a true rebuild.<\/p>\n In Fleck’s first year at the helm at Western Michigan, the Broncos were 1-11. Last year, they were undefeated until facing Wisconsin in their bowl game. If he can rebuild that team, I don’t know why he can’t rebuild the Gophers. At the same time, rebuilds don’t happen overnight. I’m predicting eight wins for Minnesota this year, but I’m an optimist; I freely admit that seven is probably more realistic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Minnesota’s second half schedule is, not surprisingly, considerably more difficult than the first. The good news is that the Gophers do avoid both Ohio State and Penn State in cross-divisional play. Oct. 21 vs. Illinois It gets off to an easy enough start with a home game against Illinois. The Illini struggled mightily last season […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":945,"featured_media":4727,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[316,319,279,511,825,85],"class_list":["post-8213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bigten","tag-illinois-fighting-illini","tag-iowa-hawkeyes","tag-michigan-wolverines","tag-nebraska-cornhuskers","tag-northwestern-wildcats","tag-wisconsin-badgers"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/945"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Oct. 28 @ Iowa<\/h2>\n
Nov. 1 @ Michigan<\/h2>\n
Nov. 11 vs. Nebraska<\/h2>\n
Nov. 18 @ Northwestern<\/h2>\n
Nov. 25 vs. Wisconsin<\/h2>\n
Bottom Line:<\/h2>\n