Minnesota Football 2025 Offensive Preview
Minnesota visits Berkeley as slight road favorites.
I’m going to be honest here, I have no idea what I should be writing in these introductions anymore. When I was previewing Pac-12 teams, the opponent needed no introduction; I could just launch into recent history, what’s new, or how the teams have been playing. Ask me my thoughts on Stanford, USC, or UCLA, and I could just launch into a thousand-word (and apparently very polarizing) diatribe. But these days, I don’t have animosity towards any of Cal’s opponents. Who in the ACC am I supposed to be mad at? When I preview OOC opponents, I usually don’t have a lot of history to talk about (Cal leads the series with Minnesota 4-2, with the two most recent wins in 2006 and 2009), and so sometimes I’ll just write a brief introduction on the team, and maybe some basic background facts about the team. Is that what I should be doing here?
Minnesota is led by coach PJ Fleck, who has captained a remarkable turnaround of the Minnesota Golden Gophers. PJ Fleck’s 60.6% win record (60-39 at the time of this writing) is 3rd highest among Minnesota coaches who’ve coached for more than 40 games, and the highest among Minnesota coaches since Cal last appeared in a Rose Bowl (and no, I am not sorry I used that as a metric over something like “since the Korean War ended”). His signature catchphrase is “row the boat,” a mantra inspired by the death of his newborn son. It’s his way of saying that you have to focus on what you can control and to just keep moving forward, no matter the circumstances. His motivation has inspired a cultural shift in Minnesota football.
The offensive coordinator is Greg Harbaugh Jr. To answer your question ahead of time; no, offensive coordinator Greg Harbaugh is not related to Jim or John Harbaugh. But every time I hear about “Harbaugh’s” play-calling on the broadcast, I unconsciously and involuntarily take it way more seriously than I should, just because of the name. Can you imagine like a… Steve or Stephen somewhere (say, somewhere in North Carolina) having a really serious football pedigree type of name, and every time you hear that name you’re like “wow this person for sure knows what they’re doing”, but then they obviously have no blood relation to that name because of their absolutely garbanzo bean play-calling? Well that’s not the case here, because Harbaugh has definitely never been blown out by a Sonny Dykes team (ugh) 48-14 or anything like that.
Minnesota’s catchphrase (or war cry or whatever you want to call it) which can be seen on their helmets is “Ski-U-Mah” (pronounced "Sky-you-ma"). You might think this is some Native American battlecry, likely from some tribe native to the Minnesota region. But like the team captain who coined the phrase in 1884 (mistakenly believing it was the Dakota word for “victory”), you’d be wrong. The phrase is complete nonsense.
…and with that, let’s delve right into the preview!
Quarterback
The Golden Gophers are led by redshirt freshman quarterback Drake Lindsey. Pretty much Lindsey’s entire family went to Arkansas: his cousin, dad, uncle, and grandfather all played football at Arkansas, while his sister plays basketball and another cousin is on the track and field team there. His grandfather Jim Lindsey was on the 1964 Arkansas squad (along with Jerry Jones) that went 11-0 and had a claim to the national championship (back in the day when that sort of thing was determined by polls voted on prior to any bowl games), and then played 7 years in the NFL. Jim Lindsey was a running back on the 1969 Minnesota Vikings team that won the 1969 NFL championship, led by Cal great QB Joe Kapp. (The 1969 NFL championship was the final championship game prior to the AFL-NFL Merger, with the winner playing in Super Bowl IV, where Kapp the Vikings fell to the Chiefs 23-7). Given that Drake Lindsey’s grandfather was a running back, his dad a wide receiver, and uncle a tight end, it’s fairly reasonable to conclude that Drake Lindsey’s quarterbacking skill is solely due to Joe Kapp passing down his QB knowledge through the Lindsey lineage, and Drake has Cal solely to thank for his QB prowess. You’re welcome.
I think this will be an interesting matchup between two young, talented freshman quarterbacks. Like JKS, Lindsey has a strong arm, exceptional touch, and plus arm talent. There aren’t too many games to pull clips from (and he only played half of last week’s FCS rout), but he pretty much immediately showed excellent touch on his throws:
Lindsey also showed a good feel for the pocket, keeping his eyes downfield as the pocket broke down:
Lindsey had no problem launching it down the field:
But conversely, Lindsey showed some overconfidence (or perhaps just a bad read) by trying to force some throws through an impossible window:
Lindsey also threw one of the most unlucky interceptions I’ve seen:
Lindsey is a confident passer with a lot of faith in his arm talent, but may be prone to some freshmen mistakes. So far though, he’s looked stellar, avoiding a lot of the pitfalls I often see in freshman QB starts (one-read, determining the throw pre-snap, etc), so I definitely think Lindsey has shown a lot of promise so far.
Running back
Minnesota’s rushing attack is led by the power running RB Darius Taylor, who has shown NFL-caliber potential. Darius Taylor is probably not going to set any footrace records, but he has exceptional balance and an ability to stay upright on contact, as well as superb patience, vision, and ability to find a lane. Of course, I spent this off-season taking way too many clips of Darius Taylor, only for him to get injured last week and he is now listed as questionable (for what it’s worth, it looked like a noncontact injury— maybe a pulled/strained hamstring, as he pulled up on his run and intentionally went out of bounds prior to the goal line despite having a clear path to score).
Taylor is a punishing runner and will absolutely make defenses pay for weak tackles or poor tackling form:
Taylor’s strongest attribute is his ability to maintain his balance on contact— he will often absorb hits and find a way to stay upright:
While Taylor may lack top end speed, he has plenty of elusiveness which can make him difficult to tackle:
Taylor is a very patient runner and does a great job at watching his blocks develop to anticipate the defense and find his cutback lanes:
And again:
Taylor can change direction on a dime, and he has a ton of runs like the following where he just completely takes the defender out of the play:
I mentioned Taylor is definitely not a speedster, and his lack of top-end speed is probably the biggest knock against his NFL Draft stock. But he can still get creative and find ways to buy extra yards:
On the other hand, if we’re considering Taylor’s NFL Draft stock, his ability as a pass-catcher is a huge plus. He’s good in pass protection, but he has the ability to do more than just run simple checkdown routes, and he has reliable hands:
And of course, I have to top it all off with the following play:
I’m not going to pretend that was a natural throwing motion, but it just speaks to his versatility in the backfield. Minnesota does like to run trick plays in the redzone.
If Taylor does not play, Minnesota can fall back on a very deep running back room. There are experienced transfers like former Washington RB Cam Davis and former Marshall RB AJ Turner, and there are also some talented freshmen like Fame Ijeboi and Grant Washington (who saw plenty of action last week in an FCS blowout).
I’ll start with Cam Davis, since I’m most familiar with him (RIP Pac-12). Of course, I could always plagiarize my old 2022 blurb (and it’s ridiculous how often I recognize transfers like this in the current era of college football), but to keep it succinct, Davis is fast, shifty runner with good balance and vision. He hits the hole hard when he finds them:
Davis is also a viable pass-catching threat out of the backfield:
Marshall transfer AJ Turner I am less familiar with, and he hasn’t really jumped out on tape so far this year (a lot of short, between-the-tackles type of runs), but (and I am sensing a pattern here), Turner has also shown some good balance on contact:
As well as an ability to catch passes out of the backfield:
Minnesota boasts a deep running back group that provides dependable short-yardage production. While they may not feature a true home-run hitter, their backs are versatile and frequently utilized in multiple ways, especially as pass-catching options. It’s also worth noting that Minnesota was able to ice the game against Buffalo with a 4th quarter drive that lasted almost 10 minutes, so Minnesota can definitely play keep away with the ball if necessary.
Receivers
It’s far too early in the season to determine who QB Drake Lindsey’s favorite target is (and he does a good job of distributing the ball), so I don’t have an obvious #1 receiver to focus on here. Perhaps due to my own biases, I’ll default to UCLA transfer Logan Loya, who I’ve obviously previewed before. I was unnecessarily harsh on Loya just because he happened to attend some clown community college, but now that he’s at Minnesota, I can be a fair bit more objective. Loya is a crisp route runner with a knack for finding the soft spots in coverage, which makes him a productive high-volume slot receiver.
Loya has also shown the ability to adjust to less-than-ideal throws (which is necessary back when you were playing for a Big Ten bottom-feeder):
and to create some YAC:
Although he has had some drops in previous years, he’s also shown the ability to make some plus-catches:
Minnesota’s leading returning receiver is… RB Darius Taylor, but after him, it’s the tight end Jameson Geers. Geers was a prominent redzone (and short yardage) threat, for his ability to make catches in traffic and in coverage:
And Exhibit B:
Although Geers did make catches in tight coverage, he also suffered from some concentration drops, where he looked to turn upfield before securing the catch:
Geers is another versatile player, and Minnesota will find other uses for him, such as on this run on 4th and inches:
Minnesota’s most athletic player—and the highest-rated recruit of the past decade—is 4-star safety Koi Perich. You’ll hear plenty about him on defense (and he’s a difference-maker on defense that offenses need to gameplan around), but after being the team’s primary kick- and punt-returner last year, he’s channeling Travis Hunter and will appear in ~10-12 offensive snaps at wide receiver as well:
Minnesota will be looking to get the ball into their play-maker’s hands:
The starting Z-receiver in the redshirt freshman Jalen Smith (who briefly appeared in the QB section), but with only two catches so far this year (with 60 of his 75 receiving yards being in that clip in the QB section), I don’t have too much to review here. He’s a track star receiver and apparently showed out in summer camp, so Minnesota is expecting big things from him.
Backing up Smith is another receiver that likes to run go-routes, Miami (OH) transfer Javon Tracy:
Tracy also flashed some YAC ability:
The starting X-receiver is a returning Minnesota receiver, Le’Meke Brockington. Both the following catches look like drops (the first one I edited the questionable completion part out as he loses the ball out of bounds, but there’s no hiding the second one):
I don’t know why Brockington’s biggest plays are like this:
So while Minnesota has plenty of capable receivers, I’m not sure there is anyone that stands out as a special threat.
Special teams
Minnesota’s kicker is Syracuse transfer Brady Denaburg, who has been inconsistent from 40+ yard FGs, hitting just 3/6 in his career, with a career-long of 46 (he’s 0/3 from 50+):
The punter Tom Weston transferred from a Division 2 school (Ouachita Baptist University), but he’s Australian, so he probably knows what he’s doing. Just figured special teams were worth mentioning, because punting and kicking seem like something a Big Ten school would take very seriously.
Conclusion
If I were a neutral observer, I would probably say that this is a pretty impressive (and fairly underrated) Big Ten team, and I can understand why Minnesota would be favorites on the road. On the other hand, Justin Wilcox has excelled at early-season, out of conference matchups, for reasons I don’t fully understand (I presume it’s because Cal’s coach is contractually obligated to get Cal fans’ hopes as high as possible before inevitably crushing them). Cal and Minnesota do have fairly similar offenses, although I would give the edge to Cal’s pass game and to Minnesota’s run game. With two similarly capable teams, there isn’t a lot of margin for error, and I would suspect that the game might come down to whichever freshman quarterback makes fewer mistakes against a ball-hawk secondary.
As always,
Go Bears.
You can find my full clips here.
Gopher fan here, great write up Christopher. UMN fans don't often see this much research being conducted about our team from other noncon P4 journalists, so good on you.
You're pretty much spot on with your analysis across the board, I think most Gophers fans will tell you that our biggest concern on offense is the line. Lot of new guys/guys playing in different spots/rotations still being figured out. Tough to get much from last game, but they struggled a bit against a pretty decent Buffalo defense.
Looking forward to the game Saturday! I really think this will be a fun & close game. Wishing Cal the best of luck this season (after Saturday)
Entertaining and informative as usual. (Btw- who in the pic doesn’t look like they are from Minnesota? If it’s the guy on the left- there’s actually a huge Hmong population that immigrated there in the 70’s)