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Gophers to go to Quick Lane Bowl in Detroit

andy greder, pioneer press
·3 min read

The Gophers football team will head to a familiar bowl game against a recognizable opponent that conjures a bad memory.

Minnesota (5-7) will play Bowling Green (7-5) in the Quick Lane Bowl at Ford Field in Detroit at 1 p.m. Dec. 26.

The U will be making their third overall appearance in the Quick Lane Bowl; they went to the Detroit Lions’ home stadium as a 5-7 team in 2015 and beat Central Michigan in 2015. Then as a 6-6 squad in 2018, they beat Georgia Tech.

This matchup will harken to Minnesota’s most-surprising loss under head coach P.J. Fleck. The Gophers were a 31-point favorite and lost at home to Bowling Green, 14-10, in 2021. It was the second-largest Big Ten upset in at least the last 40 years, following Minnesota being a 31.5-point favorite and losing to Northwestern in 1982.

The majority of national bowl projections earlier this week had the Gophers going to the Quick Lane Bowl, but that picture seemed to change Saturday night with Georgia losing the SEC championship game. The Bulldogs were then picked to go to the Orange Bowl.

The logic was Minnesota would climb a rung on the Big Ten’s ladder of bowl affiliations and might instead head to the Guaranteed Rate Bowl in Phoenix for the second time in three years.

But since the Gophers made a bowl with a 5-7 record, Minnesota was technically not bowl eligible, according to the Big Ten, and affiliated bowls have contract language that allows them to pick other teams ahead of Minnesota, the Pioneer Press understands

One of those bowls was the Guaranteed Rate Bowl, and their contract calls for them to take a team from the Mountain West Conference should the Big Ten not be able to fulfill it’s obligation without enough six-win teams.

The Gophers, which lost four straight games in November, reached a bowl because there weren’t enough six-win teams and the bowl schedule needed one more team to full out its 82-team field. The U had the highest Academic Progress Rate (APR) among all five-win teams and got the spot.

Minnesota will be making its 24th bowl appearance; they have won six straight bowls, including four consecutive under P.J. Fleck. Recent wins include a 18-6 victory over West Virginia in the Guaranteed Rate Bowl in Phoenix in 2021 and 28-20 over Syracuse in the Pinstripe Bowl in New York City in 2022.

Bowling Green of the Mid-American Conference and the Gophers had one common opponent in the 2023 season: current top-ranked team Michigan. The Falcons lost 31-6 to the Wolverines 31-6 on Sept. 16, while Minnesota fell to 52-10 on Oct. 7.

Since the regular season ended, the Gophers roster had had turnover with six scholarship players saying they will enter the NCAA transfer portal, including starting quarterback Athan Kaliakmanis and reserve running back Zach Evans.

Gophers star players, tight end Brevyn Spann-Ford and safety Tyler Nubin, said after the 28-14 loss to Wisconsin that they would need more time to determine if they will opt out of the bowl game. Both players have been selected to participate in the Senior Bowl in early February in preparation for the NFL draft in April.

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