Iowa Football: Ranking The Hawkeyes Conference Foes: #7 Minnesota
Our countdown to kickoff coverage continues with our nine teams in nine days preview series. With just under a week until kickoff, we round out the bottom third of the conference schedule by taking a look at Iowa’s seventh toughest opponent, the Minnesota Golden Gophers.
When do they play?
October 28th @ Kinnick Stadium
What you need to know:
It’ll be the 8th game of the season for the Hawkeyes, their fifth at home. Iowa plays Northwestern in Evanston the week before, and will play the mighty Ohio State a week later, so the Minnesota contest sets up as a bit of a trap game for the Hawkeyes. Iowa has taken home the Floyd of Rosedale four of the last five seasons.
What to Watch for:
Minnesota is in a pretty good spot as a program right now, they’ve won eight games or more in three of the last four seasons and now have one of the most prized young coaches in the sport in P.J. Fleck. That said, Minnesota lost eight starters from its defense that finished fourth in the Big Ten in YPG last season, and their quarterback situation could be troubling.
The Gophers graduated three year starting quarterback Mitch Leidner, and his replacement will be either sophomore Demry Croft or fifth year senior Conor Rhoda. The 6’5, dual-threat Croft is the quarterback of the future, but he’s seemingly having issues adjusting to the college level and taking care of the football. Rhoda, the former walk on who beat out Croft for the backup job last season, brings more of a game management style of play to the table. It’ll be up to Fleck to decide what he wants, a quarterback who’ll take care of the football while limiting the offense’s ceiling, or a quarterback that can create explosive plays but is also more likely to cost the team with mental mistakes and turnovers.
Prediction
The Gophers figure to be a real threat to Iowa’s status in the Big Ten West hierarchy in the coming years, but their 2017 squad has a few more question marks than the Hawkeyes do. The trap game effect is real, but Kirk Ferentz has done a better job the last two seasons getting the team ready to play on a week-to-week basis. With the uncertainty surrounding Minnesota’s quarterback situation, this one feels like a game where Josey Jewel and the Iowa defense will be making the headlines. As long as Iowa takes care of the football and avoids the big special team gaffe, they should come out victorious.
Final Score- Iowa 19-Minnesota 10