2026 Gophers Season Preview

Goldy welcomes you to the 2026 season.

Normally, this post would be longer, and so would this introduction. In the past, I've gone long on cognitive dissonance, conference and Playoff expansion, sport as tradition and myth, and generally big themes about What College Football Means.

Today, I am not going to do that. For different reasons, I took longer than normal to start my 2026 season preview series. One of them is that I just had other things going on, but another is that my enthusiasm for college football in the offseason has changed.

More than ever, following the sport is not about the sport itself. I hold fairly neutral views on many (not all) of the individual reasons for that, but I nevertheless find it increasingly exhausting to keep up with college football in the middle of the summer. This affects my readiness to write thousands of words about college football when preseason camps start up across the country.

This time around, I needed football to be closer to tangible before I even wanted to think about it. I started so late that I was not sure I could actually complete this preview series. I withheld publishing the first post until I had enough of the others done that I believed that I could. It was deeply satisfying to finish this week, both because of the effort required to do so and because I finally feel mentally and emotionally ready for my favorite pastime.

This introduction is instead an explanation for my tardiness (see above), as well as a description of what follows. The main difference from past posts of this kind is that I will not be going in-depth on each of Minnesota's opponents. This took up considerable time in years past, time that I did not have this preseason.

Past readers, if any are here, will recognize the rest: I ask 10 big questions facing the 2026 Golden Gophers, divided between offense, defense, and special teams. I give my predicted depth chart, which is always mostly right but also always wrong in a handful of ways that will annoy me later. If you have not read any of my previews of each position group, below, you will find links to them all. I also predict the team's regular season record and bowl destination.

Then I shut up, and it's time for real, live football.

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Offense

Position previews: receivers and tight ends ・ running backs ・ quarterbacks ・ offensive line

Predicted depth chart:

Click to enlarge any image in this post.

How good is Drake Lindsey right now?

It was the lead question in last year's preview, and there cannot be any other first question this year. Not when Drake Lindsey had the highs he did as a redshirt freshman, not when he is getting buzz as a dark horse for Round 1 of the 2027 NFL Draft, not when so much of this offense depends on his development. Lindsey is the key to unlocking another level to this offense, both this season and however many subsequent seasons he plays in a Minnesota uniform. With more consistency, he could justify much of the hype surrounding him and give Minnesota a dangerous passing game again. If he does not raise the bar from an uneven showing in 2025, that may keep the Gophers from reaching a bowl.

2026 Gophers Position Previews: Secondary

Summer days are getting shorter. Football is coming. To make you the fan at your tailgate most informed on the top, middle, and bottom of Minnesota's depth chart, Ski-U-Blog is previewing each position group on the roster. This preseason, the U of M secondary faces both major changes and familiar questions.

Likely Starters

The biggest story in the Minnesota secondary will be who isn't there. As much as bitter fans will want to play the "we didn't need him anyway" card, and however much saving money on one player may have benefitted other areas of the roster, the bottom line is that the Gophers will miss Koi Perich.

Beyond his symbolic importance as the Esko kid who stayed home to be a star, Perich was the best, most dynamic player on the team. The same hubris that got him in trouble, overrunning the ball and adding more responsibilities than he was likely ready to handle, is what made him such a thrill. His key plays won multiple games, including last year's weird and messy game versus Purdue. In a year where the defense took a step back, Perich cleaned up loads of other players' mistakes, flying in from the secondary to stop opposing gains from becoming hemorrhages. The fact that another school will get to reap the rewards of his game-changing talent, and that he will be announced as an Oregon product at the NFL Draft instead of a Minnesota one, will hurt.

There were, however, places on the roster where Perich's departure would hurt more. The defense is well-stocked at safety, a signature strength of the Gophers under P.J. Fleck.

The most obvious example is Kerry Brown, a star in his own right.

Granted, Brown's tackling was not as superlative in his previous season, which was a problem across the board for Minnesota's safeties. He was still around the ball plenty and finished with 48.0 tackles (40 solo). And where Perich's flashy moments fell off, Brown supplied his own, making 10.0 havoc plays. He is the team's best defensive back, and he owns one of the highest ceilings on the whole roster. If he can combine the plays he made on the ball in 2025 with the brilliant tackling of 2024, he will be one of the best safeties in the country.