Identifying Potential Transfer Priorities for the Gophers (2023-24)

P.J. Fleck has twice shown he can build a winning team at Minnesota. His ability to do it a third time will likely determine whether at the end of next season he is still the Gophers' head coach. He comes off his first sub-.500 full season since his debut, a fall that simultaneously was foreseeable and still came up short of even modest expectations.

Depending on one's perspective, Minnesota will have new starters at three offensive positions and three defensive positions. Inexperience was the story of 2023, which means experience will be the story entering 2024. Whether that translates to substantial improvement is the key to answering the question: Are the pieces in place but just weren't ready yet, or has Fleck run out of steam?

At one of the six positions turning over, the Gophers will need no additional help: While their best overall player, Tyler Nubin, departs, three underclassmen saw time at boundary safety this season. Veteran Craig McDonald, who hardly played after arriving from Auburn over the summer, will be back. Four-star recruit Koi Perich could also be part of the picture, assuming he signs. There is healthy competition at the back of the secondary.

Other departures do not leave so many options. Between now and the next fall camp, players will transfer from the U of M. This happens often, which Fleck has made or accepted as part of how he does his business. This can thin the depth chart. For example, Braelen Oliver and Donald Willis' departures made the situation at linebacker dicier to the point of a borderline crisis after a series of injuries.

The transfer market goes both ways, though, and Minnesota has been unafraid to plug holes with players leaving other programs. Sometimes, they have hit; sometimes, they have not. But Minnesota will surely seek to reload this way again. With that in mind, here are some places where Minnesota may want reinforcements.

In this post, players are referred to by their class (freshman, sophomore, etc.) entering the 2024 season. This practice may be slightly confusing, but since this covers the 2024 roster, it is better than the alternative.

Quarterback

Potential need: immediate contributor and depth

In the interest of transparency: If it seems I have buried the lede a bit, it is because this post was about 99-percent done as of Tuesday morning. For whatever reason, I chose to wait to publish it.

That decision prevented this post from becoming instantly outdated, as Athan Kaliakmanis announced Tuesday his intention to transfer from Minnesota. Hours later, backup Drew Viotto did the same.

These departures came a day after the Gophers showed their cards by offering a scholarship to New Hampshire graduate-transfer Max Brosmer. Fleck reportedly could not guarantee Kaliakmanis the starting job after an inconsistent 2023, informing the quarterback room that he would look for transfers.

As a result of Kaliakmanis and Viotto leaving, the Gophers will have two quarterbacks on the roster entering the bowl game. With Cole Kramer participating in Senior Day (despite having one more year of eligibility), it is likely that redshirt-freshman Max Shikenjanski will be the only quarterback on the team who will remain next season. There is just one quarterback in the incoming recruiting class, so Minnesota will need to find a starter and a backup.

So far, the list of quarterbacks putting their names in the portal is mostly full of veterans who lost a first-string job (Will Howard, Max Johnson, Noah Kim), lost their coach (Will Rogers, Brendan Sorsby, Dexter Williams II), or want one more shot to play after a late-career injury (Gerry Bohanon, Spencer Petras, Tyler Shough). Most are not appealing, but Brosmer, Rogers, and Holy Cross' Matthew Sluka show that talented quarterbacks can hit the market. More surely will. Attracting the right one will be the most important task this offseason.

We Are Maroon and Gold Episode 250

Week 13 of the college football season, including most prominently the 133rd Minnesota-Wisconsin game.

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Gophers Notebook: Minnesota 3-37 Ohio State

Much like the loss to Michigan a little over a month ago, Minnesota's trip to Ohio State leaves few talking points. The Gophers kept things close for a while, but they never came close to controlling this game and hardly had a chance. The result was close to inevitable.

Early, the OSU offense more or less played with its food. Kyle McCord was unexceptional, but TreVeyon Henderson led a highly efficient ground game. Henderson averaged 6.6 yards per attempt in the first half and had just one negative carry. He is a powerful runner behind a strong offensive line, as the Gophers' linebackers got caught in traffic, he had wide open running lanes.

The Buckeyes were content to not go deep because the Gophers could not control the edge against OSU's faster skill players. See the tap passes to Emeka Egbuka:

Marvin Harrison Jr. was quiet by his standards — he finished with three catches for 30 yards and a touchdown — but Egbuka's 83 receiving yards almost matched Minnesota's total (89). He did it all before halftime.

The Buckeyes basically did what they wanted until they got deep into Minnesota territory, where they stalled. Incompletions and one stopped run forced passing downs, and McCord couldn't dig them out. They led by 13 at the break anyway.

Gophers Notebook: Minnesota 30-49 Purdue

In P.J. Fleck's second year, he had an obvious problem. That problem's name was Robb Smith.

Smith was defensive coordinator at Arkansas before Fleck arrived to the U of M, and that ended in failure. It was not because the Razorbacks were bad on every down; while their opponents were fairly efficient, they were not quite moving at will. The problem was that Smith's defense could not stop giving up big plays. In 2016, the Razorbacks' run defense ranked 127th out of 130 teams in CFBD's explosiveness metric. When a defense gives up so many chunk plays, the operation is broken.

Fleck never should have hired Smith. However, the two coached together at Rutgers and with the Buccaneers under Greg Schiano, so Fleck brought his old colleague to Minneapolis.

The results were predictable. Minnesota had one of the most combustible defenses in the country. This came to a head at the start of November 2018, when the Gophers went to Champaign and gave up 55 points to Illinois. The Illini, who had legitimately explosive tailbacks but few other strengths, averaged 12.3 yards per carry and ran for five touchdowns, three of which were for more than 70 yards. They wouldn't win another game the rest of the season.

Fleck fired Smith the next day. That decision saved the Gophers' bowl chances and likely Fleck's entire tenure as head coach. Joe Rossi, elevated in the interim, turned out to be an exceptional defensive coordinator and deservedly remains in that position, likely until he finds his first head coaching job. Fleck had an obvious problem, he addressed it, and the program was immediately better for it.

Today's Gophers have no single, glaring, instant-fix problem.

The Gophers are 5-5, with realistically one more winnable game to achieve bowl eligibility. I wrote a week ago that none of this has to mean Fleck's tenure is crumbling apart. I firmly hold that position.

The nature of this defeat is nevertheless alarming because Purdue exposed Minnesota's weaknesses to the fullest extent. It was a bad matchup — the pass-first team with a mobile quarterback and a respectable skill group, despite poor offensive line play, against the defense with secondary problems, injuries at linebacker, and difficulties with mobile quarterbacks — that went even worse than expected. The score nearly matches that 2018 loss to Illinois. With Northwestern and Indiana left on their schedule, Purdue might even finish with the record Illinois posted that season, 4-8.

What has been clear since September, but that grows more strongly underscored, is that Fleck must show in 2024 that this is a momentary setback, the kind of season every team in America has in their own way. Because that is just the cycle: You get a season or two where a crop of players peaks, and when they graduate, you need to replace them. At a brand-name program, that means ending up in the Alamo Bowl rather than the Playoff. At Minnesota or Iowa or Utah or Georgia Tech or Oklahoma State, it means finishing .500 or below it. No matter who you are, you have to reckon with the truth that you cannot keep your best players forever. When they are gone, you get to know your head coach's floor.

We Are Maroon and Gold Episode 249

Aaron and Chandler get bogged down in a discussion about legacy artists before talking about the state of the Gophers after their loss to Illinois and about the dangers presented by Purdue.

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Gophers Notebook: Illinois 27-26 Minnesota

This is the way it goes sometimes. With a roster in transition, competing in a Big Ten West that is muddled and mediocre to the point of caricature, Minnesota was going to play some close games this season. Against Nebraska and Iowa, they made just enough plays and got just enough breaks to pull through at the end. Against Illinois, however, they came up just short.

It wasn't exactly like the disaster in Evanston, where their head coach's longstanding faults held them back for the umpteenth time, but one where familiar issues sprung up at the worst moments to cost Minnesota a win in the end.

The third quarter did not go as well as the Gophers would have wanted, with Illinois scoring on a long touchdown to take the lead and Minnesota's offense unable to continue its solid first-half performance. The game was not tied but entered a state of stalemate. For nearly 20 minutes, the 1-point margin remained. Neither offense had more than two sets of downs on a drive. The two defenses, despite taking steps back in 2023, came to rule the game.

It was the kind of game typical for the West, where one big play may decide the outcome. The Gophers looked to have gotten multiple such plays.

On a 3rd down in their own territory, the Illini came out in 11 personnel, with an empty backfield. Their best receiver, the shifty ex-quarterback Isaiah Williams, lined up in the slot. That meant linebacker Ryan Selig had to run with Williams. Williams ran a shallow route and beat Selig easily, picking up the conversion — until Cody Lindenberg swooped in and punched the ball free.

To that point, by win probability added, this fumble was the second-biggest play of the game. Two plays later, Minnesota took the lead.

Illinois still had another chance. Luke Altmyer threw it away to Tyler Nubin.

The game was in the Gophers' hands. With Illinois down to two timeouts, Minnesota might have just about extinguished their last hopes by picking up one 1st down.

We Are Maroon and Gold Episode 248

 

The 2024 Big Ten schedule, Minnesota's win over Michigan State, and previewing Illinois.

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes here.