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2018 Season Rewind: Minnesota

2018 PREDICTIONS

WHERE I WENT RIGHT

Umm…everything?  They went 6-6 (3-6) just like I predicted and then picked up a bowl victory against Georgia Tech.  As far as specifics, I spilled a ton of ink talking about how bad the quarterback situation was and, well, as a team they finished 90th in passing yards per game.  Only three Big Ten clubs had a worse mark.

WHERE I WENT WRONG

Really nowhere but I did flip some of the games.  The biggest flip has to be picking Minnesota to beat Northwestern then lose to Wisconsin.  Yeah, about that, Northwestern won the division and beat the Gophers 24-14 in a defensive gem.  A week later Minnesota finally won back the Axe in a blistering 37-15 shelling of the once proud Badgers.

SEASON-DEFINING MOMENT

Yeah, let’s talk more about that season finale…Coming into 2018, Wisconsin had won 14 straight dating back to 2004 and going all the way back to 1990 (Barry Alvarez’s first year) the series was 23-5.  Want more history?  Minnesota’s last win in Madison was 1994.  Sitting at 5-6 (2-6) and traveling to a 7-3 (5-2) Badger club didn’t bode too well for the streak to be snapped but boy was it.  Minnesota forced four turnovers and raced out to a 17-7 halftime lead.  From there they mashed the Badgers even more into the dirt when they reeled off 20 unanswered points in the second half to take a commanding 37-7 lead.  Minnesota’s offense that day was ruthlessly efficient, the defense suffocating, and the special teams electric with a housed punt return and solid kicker Emmit Carpenter drilling three field goals to keep the scoreboard humming in UM’s direction.  The win threw a big old monkey off Minnesota’s back, got the team to their first bowl of the Fleck era, and with the bowl win gave this team a lot of mojo heading into 2019.

MVP

Mohamed Ibrahim, RB – This team was a classic case of the sum being greater than the individual parts so picking an MVP was really difficult.  In the end I went with Ibrahim because he was big in the Purdue and Wisconsin victories and had over 200 yards in the bowl win.  With the passing attack being young and inconsistent, the emergence of a beast at running back was critical for the Gophers.

  • Honorable Mention: Tyler Johnson (WR), Emmit Carpenter (K), Blake Cashman (LB), and Jacob Huff (DB) were the guys that made the Ibrahim pick so tough.  Johnson had 43% of the Gopher’s receiving yards and 12 of the 20 touchdowns the passing game produced.  Cashman and Huff were the rock-stars on the Gopher D that came up big in the same games Ibrahim did.  Lastly was Carpenter, one of the league’s best kickers who hit all of his extra points, 74% of his field goals, and ended the year with 94 points.

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