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Yes, the headline is correct. The Minnesota Golden Gophers of the Big Ten Conference are currently sporting a 7-0 record for the first time since their first (and only) national championship season 59 years ago in 1960.
Think about how much has happened since the Golden Gophers football team has been this hot.
America has put men on the moon. Television viewing has converted from black-and-white to color television sets and now via digital signals to a hand-held phone. Plus, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has advanced from 685 points (that is correct) in 1960 to over 26,000 (give or take a few hundred points).
Also during that span, a Saturday morning cartoon called “Go Go Gophers” aired within the “Underdog” cartoon series during the late 1960’s. The show featured a large number of reliably corny jokes and featured a couple of Native American gophers outwitting a troop of bumbling US Cavalry members in the Old West.
The 2019 Minnesota Golden Gophers college football team is currently in first place in the Big Ten West by one game over 6-1 Wisconsin and two games over 5-2 Iowa and 4-3 Nebraska. This week, the team will host the Maryland Terrapins (3-4) with a chance to stretch their in-season winning streak to eight games in a row.
If the Gophers take care of business this week, it might set-up the biggest home football game in the school’s history as undefeated Penn State comes to Minnesota on Saturday, November 9.
The Associated Press ranked Minnesota at #17 (its highest ranking since 2004) with Penn State at #6. In contrast, your SwampSwami has the Gophers rated #9 and PSU at #6 in my poll this week.
The Gophers start to the 2019 football season was not very impressive, though. The team won its first four games by 7 points, 3 points, 3 points, and 7 points against relatively weak competition.
Since then, though, Minnesota has plowed through Big Ten rivals Illinois, Nebraska, and Rutgers by more than 20 points each.
Though Minnesota has been relatively successful in the past decade with a number of bowl appearances, the team has lost at least three football games every season since 2003.
Being undefeated heading into the month of November is a new concept for this university with over 47,000 students. If the Gophers should beat Maryland on Saturday and Auburn should upset LSU this weekend, there is a very good chance that a November 9 match-up between the Gophers and the Nittany Lions of Penn State might also bring the ESPN GameDay crew to Minneapolis for the first time, too.
This year’s Minnesota football team features the nation’s 17th ranked defense and a balanced but surprisingly productive offense which scores nearly 35 points per game. In a nutshell, this is a team which can beat you on the ground (190 yards per game) or in the air (230 yards per game).
It also doesn’t beat itself with penalties (ranked #4th fewest out of 130 FBS teams) and controls the football on offense (ranked #13 in time of possession).
Head Coach P.J. Fleck is just 38 years old and in his third season at the helm in Minnesota. Previously, Fleck led an amazing turnaround at Western Michigan University by starting with a team which finished 1-11 in 2013 and leading them to an unbeaten 12-0 regular season in 2016. The Broncos finally lost to Wisconsin by just eight points in that season’s Cotton Bowl.
During his time at Western Michigan, Fleck used the motivational phrase “Row the Boat” to inspire his football players that it takes hard work and the best efforts of every player on the team to win consistently. The coach said he coined the phrase when he was struggling to deal with the loss of his infant son (Colt) due a heart condition.
After taking the job at Minnesota, Coach Fleck has injected the team with his heart, too. The coach allowed a walk-on former quarterback to come aboard the team this season.
Walk-ons are not very unusual, until you learn that sophomore walk-on Casey O’Brien is a four-time survivor of a rare bone cancer (osteosarcoma). After years of chemotherapy, the young man had to give up his desires to play quarterback and simply wanted someone to allow him the chance to play on their college football team.
Enter Minnesota Coach P.J. Fleck! He welcomed this young man onto the Gophers football team.
Last Saturday, Casey O’Brien went into his first college football game to be the holder for the place kicker during three fourth quarter extra point attempts during Minnesota’s 42-7 win at Rutgers. The young player was mobbed by his teammates along the sidelines after each of the three successful extra points.
For his courage and hard work, Casey O’Brien was just named the Big Ten Special Teams player of the week.
Row the boat, indeed!
It’s certainly easy to root for this Minnesota college football team.
They are quietly working their way up the national rankings. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll get a chance to see ESPN GameDay host Lee Corso finally don the headgear for the Gophers soon!
Row, Row, Gophers!