There are a small handful of bowl games this year featuring all-new matchups. The Rate Bowl between Minnesota and New Mexico is one of those instances. This one features a pair of coaches whose names rhyme with P.J. Fleck, leading the Golden Gophers, and Jason Eck, leading the Lobos in his first season. The Rate Bowl is one of the games with a handful of name changes over the years, from the Domino’s Pizza to Weiser Lock to Insight to Buffalo Wild Wings to Motel 6 to Cheez-It to Guaranteed Rate to, now, just Rate.<\/p>\n
Let’s see what these two teams have going for them heading into the second post-Christmas bowl<\/a>!<\/p>\n Minnesota comes into this one 7-5 and bowl-eligible for the seventh consecutive non-COVID season. After kicking off the year with two non-conference wins, a trip to Cal resulted in a disappointing loss. Then, after beating Rutgers, Ohio State came to town<\/a>. The high points of this year for Minnesota have to be beating then-25th-ranked Nebraska and keeping Paul Bunyan’s Axe<\/a> from Wisconsin in college football’s most-played rivalry.<\/p>\n This will be Minnesota’s fifth appearance in what is now known as the Rate Bowl. The program is 1-3 in previous matchups. However, the Golden Gophers are riding an eight-game win streak in bowls, the longest active in college football<\/p>\n Eck took over a 5-7 program and turned it into a 9-3 team and one of four MWC teams with just two losses. Unfortunately, the Lobos missed out on the championship game due to tiebreakers. After keeping it interesting in a loss to Michigan in Week 1, the Lobos rattled off three straight wins, including UCLA. Then, back-to-back losses to San Jose State and Boise State were what finally suck New Mexico’s chances. Either way, the Lobos responded with six straight wins, including one over the eventual runners-up, UNLV.<\/p>\n This will be New Mexico’s second appearance in this bowl game. That other appearance was a 20-14 loss to Arizona in the 1997 Insight Bowl.<\/p>\n It is the unfortunate nature of all of these non-CFP bowl games that, for the most part, players are going to opt out either to preserve their NFL Draft status or to hit the transfer portal before it actually opens next month. According to 247Sports<\/em>‘ tracker, there are 13 Golden Gophers looking for a new home. The most notable of which is second-leading rusher Fame Ijoboi.<\/p>\n As for New Mexico, the Lobos should be at full strength with no NFL Draft or transfer portal opt-outs.<\/p>\n The Golden Gophers do not possess a fantastic offense, to tell the truth. At the FBS level, Minnesota runs the fourth-fewest plays per game. While its Big Ten brethren, Ohio State, have been able to put together a solid season with fewer plays, Minnesota and those around it have struggled. Drake Lindsey<\/a> looks like a promising redshirt freshman quarterback, however. He finished the regular season with 2,235 and 16 touchdowns while completing 63.2% of his passes. His best game of the year came while torching Rutgers for 324 yards and three scores. Of course, his best receiver managed just 484 yards and four touchdowns.<\/p>\n The calling card in the Fleck era has been Minnesota’s run game. Darius Taylor<\/a> led the way again despite missing three (essentially four) games. Through nine games, Taylor amassed 554 yards and three touchdowns. However, keep an eye on him; he tends to turn it up in these bowl games. In his two previous bowls, Taylor went for 208 yards and one touchdown against Bowling Green in 2023, then 113 yards and one touchdown against Virginia Tech last year.<\/p>\n Out of 136 teams, Minnesota’s scoring offense ranks 98th, its passing offense ranks 104th, its total offense ranks 128th, and its rushing offense ranks 129th.<\/p>\n The New Mexico defense has a strong pass rush with two solid defensive ends. Both Keyshawn James-Newby<\/a> and Brett Karhu<\/a> have logged double-digit tackles for loss, with the former leading the MWC with eight sacks. However, the leader of this unit is MWC Defensive Player of the Year, Jaxton Eck<\/a>. The coach’s son transferred in from Idaho and just amassed 126 tackles, six-and-a-half tackles for loss, one-and-a-half sacks, two pass breakups, a forced fumble, and a fumble recovery.<\/p>\n As a unit, the Lobos’ defense was 25th in rushing defense, 48th in scoring, 49th in total defense, and 99th in passing.<\/p>\n Like Minnesota, the Lobos’ offense struggled this year. Idaho transfer Jack Layne<\/a> took over the offense at quarterback. He led the way with 2,398 yards and 13 touchdowns while completing 65.9% of his passes. He has four receivers with at least three touchdowns, but none with more than four. Keagan Johnson<\/a> has been the top target with 57 catches and 730 yards with three touchdowns.<\/p>\n On the ground, it hasn’t been much better. New Mexico is reliant on a two-headed rushing attack of DJ McKinney<\/a> (109 rushes for 454 yards for seven touchdowns) and Damon Bankson<\/a> (104 rushes for 578 yards and five touchdowns.<\/p>\n The Lobos’ offense finished the regular season ranked 66th in scoring, 73rd in rushing, 85th in passing, and 85th in total offense.<\/p>\n This Golden Gopher defense has a few names worth keeping an eye on. Up front, Anthony Smith<\/a> led the Minnesota defense with 13.5 tackles for loss and 10.5 sacks on the year. However, the secondary has a pair of studs. At safety, Koi Perich<\/a> followed up his breakout freshman campaign with 77 tackles, three tackles for loss, a sack, two pass breakups, a forced fumble, and a pick-six in the win over Purdue. With him, John Nestor<\/a>, the transfer from Iowa, had an incredible breakout season. The redshirt sophomore comes into this game with 47 tackles, six tackles for loss, six pass breakups, a fumble recovery, a Big Ten-best five interceptions, and one touchdown.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Minnesota’s defense enters this one with the 31st-ranked rushing defense, 41st-ranked total defense, 57th-ranked scoring defense, and 67th-ranked passing defense.<\/p>\n Points look like they will be at a premium in this year’s Rate Bowl. Neither offense has been able to generate much hope, while both defenses have strengths that could make life significantly more difficult. These are two very different programs in terms of where they stand after the 2025 season. The Golden Gophers are content with what Fleck is doing, so the school extended him through the 2030 season this summer. Eck is just getting started at the FBS level after leading Idaho to a 26-13 record and three straight NCAA Division I Tournament appearances.<\/p>\n If you like defense, this might be the game for you!<\/p>\n Where<\/strong>: Chase Field, Phoenix, Arizona This year’s Rate Bowl features the first-ever matchup of the Golden Gophers and Lobos. Points may be at a premium in this one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4051,"featured_media":84227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_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":[35650,5,7361,2,13],"tags":[35856,34830,1223,800],"class_list":["post-84039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-minnesota-golden-gophers","category-bigten","category-bowl-games","category-featured","category-mountainwest","tag-fame-ijeboi","tag-jason-eck","tag-new-mexico-lobos","tag-p-j-fleck"],"modified_by":"Tony Siracusa, CFB Managing Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84039","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\/4051"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84039"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84212,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84039\/revisions\/84212"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}2025 Rate Bowl: Minnesota and New Mexico Face Off For The First Time<\/h2>\n
Tracking Opt-Outs and Transfers<\/h3>\n
When Minnesota Has The Ball<\/h3>\n
When New Mexico Has The Ball<\/h3>\n
Last Word on the Rate Bowl<\/h3>\n
Bottom Line on the Rate Bowl<\/h3>\n
\nHistory<\/strong>: No previous meetings
\nDate and Time<\/strong>: December 26, 4:30 p.m. EST
\nHow to Watch<\/strong>: ESPN
\nSpread<\/strong>: Minnesota -2.5; O\/U 43.5 (via FanDuel)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"