2025 Gophers Position Previews: Running Backs

On the other side of this interminable heat, humidity, and rain is a precious thing in Minnesota: fall. To get you ready for it, Ski-U-Blog is again previewing this year's Gopher football team, one position group at a time. The second post in this series covers a deep running back room.

Likely Starter

When I put these previews together, I usually start with the newcomers first. Counterintuitively, seeing a player for the first time, watching a hopefully representative video sample of their abilities, forming an opinion, and synthesizing my findings is easier than writing about the players who have been on the roster.

Former backups stepping into meaningful roles are obviously difficult to analyze because, as an outsider, I often can only go off the information I had when they first arrived to campus. That might have been a year ago, or it might have been three or four. While I do my best to offer insight, I must be honest about my limitations.

Contrastingly, there are the players everyone knows. Those cases are hard in a different way. What can one say about Darius Taylor that is novel? If you watched even a couple of Minnesota games last season, you know what Taylor is.

His style is well-established. There are faster, shiftier, stronger, and more explosive running backs, but what makes Taylor stand out is how multidimensional his game is. He is a power back, capable of breaking tackles and keeping his balance through contact, but he also can cut and accelerate into the open field.

When you combine these skills with his intelligence and background as a receiver, you get one of the most well-rounded, all-around best tailbacks in the country. If Taylor leaves for the NFL after the season, he should close his Minnesota career with his first all-conference selection.

2025 Gophers Position Previews: Receivers and Tight Ends

On the other side of this interminable heat, humidity, and rain is a precious thing in Minnesota: fall. To get you ready for it, Ski-U-Blog is again previewing this year's Gopher football team, one position group at a time. We start today with the receivers and tight ends.

Likely Starters

Minnesota's biggest incoming transfer this fall might be Javon Tracy. Tracy totaled seven touchdowns and 818 yards on 57 catches at Miami (OH) last season, earning a place on the All-MAC first team. He was a versatile, every-down player for the RedHawks, splitting his time practically 50-50 between the outside and the slot.

Over his two seasons as a regular, about a fifth of Tracy's targets were beyond 20 yards, according to Pro Football Focus. But where he did the majority of his work was over the middle, turning short throws into significant gains. Bowling Green star Harold Fannin Jr. was the only MAC player who averaged more yards after the catch than Tracy's 7.3.

He is a slippery player, the kind of receiver that can squirm his way out of trouble or shake a cornerback on a slant or quick out. While transfers coming up from the MAC are not always instant successes, Tracy is clearly talented. He comes to Minneapolis with two years of eligibility and, once he acclimates to the higher level of competition, should be an invaluable part of the Gophers' offense.

My Ten Favorite Gopher Football Players

This year marks a decade since I arrived in Minnesota. I have loved my time here dearly, making close friends, experiencing new things, and coming to the conclusion that there is no place on earth that I would rather live out my days than Minneapolis.

Coincidentally, this means I have watched 10 seasons of Golden Gopher football. Excluding 2020, I have been a season ticket holder that whole time and have missed only two home games. The last was my freshman year of college, when I was too sick to see Minnesota defeat Illinois in the brutal cold of early November. I have gone to a number of away games since first driving down to Kinnick Stadium in 2017, and I have written in varying amounts about this program over the last six seasons. The Gophers are my favorite team in my favorite sport, and spending Saturdays in the fall on campus with friends is my favorite pastime.

In the name of celebrating my 10 years with the Golden Gophers — and because it's a relatively easy piece of offseason content — I have assembled a list of my 10 favorite players to come through this program. I saw each one of them in a game at least once; though I have great admiration for the players that came before, they are before my time. Even those I just missed, like MarQueis Gray or Brock Vereen, are only marginally greater a part of my experience as a fan as the guys who were in college when I was born, like Tyrone Carter or Tutu Atwell.

First, here 10 honorable mentions:

Shannon Brooks, Running Back (2015-19)

Max Brosmer, Quarterback (2024)

Carter Coughlin, Linebacker/Rush End (2016-19)

Winston DeLattiboudere, Defensive End (2015-19)

Daniel Faalele, Tackle (2018-21)

Jah Joyner, Defensive End (2020-24)

Jordan Howden, Safety (2018-22)

K.J. Maye, Wide Receiver (2012-15)

Tanner Morgan, Quarterback (2017-22)

Nyles Pinckney, Defensive Tackle (2021)

Ten names is far fewer than I wanted to have even on the list of cuts. Both the above players and several others I have watched all deserve additional comment for the mark they have made on the program and on my experience as a fan. However, I need to exercise some restraint. Time for the full list.

10. Peter Mortell, Punter (2011-15)

Peter Mortell can stand for the wave of Gopher specialists in the mid-to-late 2010s that had just the right kind of charm, running the now-dormant Gopher Specialists Twitter account, holding charity drives, and ultimately establishing Mortell's Holder of the Year Award. This cadre of dorks was endlessly positive and self-aware about their unglamorous jobs while using their platform to help others. Mortell specifically has a reputation for being as nice as they come. For those who followed the program at the time, he was a specific kind of icon.

9. Ko Kieft, Tight End (2016-21)

A lumbering Iowan with a flowing red mullet (until it was a rat tail), Ko Kieft looked the way he played. His game was never technical, and his two career college touchdowns do not undersell his receiving abilities. Kieft was just a cinderblock with legs, a battering ram who functioned essentially as an extra lineman to go along with the Gophers' frequent packages of six-, seven-, and even eight-man lines. His play was viscerally entertaining and highly effective, resulting in frequent pancakes.

YouTube's stock of blocking highlight reels for 6th-round tight ends
is a bit short, so here is a sample of Kieft's work in a GIF. He is lined up
behind the right tackle, pulling across the formation.