Week 12 rolls on for the Iowa Hawkeyes in Big Ten play as they look to continue building on their three-game winning streak. This weekend sees the Hawkeyes hit the road and travel to a bitterly cold Minneapolis to take on the Minnesota Golden Gophers.
Iowa enters the matchup at 6-4 overall while Minnesota is 7-3 overall. Each of the teams sit at 4-3 in Big Ten conference play. Both also are tied for first place in the Big Ten West. What looked like a standard matchup a few short weeks ago has blossomed into arguably the most important game in the Big Ten West, if not entire Big Ten, this weekend.
Minnesota has been rather boom or bust this year marred with some inconsistency. The Golden Gophers rattled off four straight to start the year and look like Big Ten contenders. They followed that up with three straight conference losses. They have now won their last three, albeit it wasn’t exactly murderer’s row of Rutgers, Nebraska, and Northwestern.
This sort of inconsistency really mirrors their head coach, P.J. Fleck. He is very much riding the highs and sulking in the lows. He is great when things are going well but when it goes bad, he goes bad.
Minnesota 2022 Statistics
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Minnesota is going to try to run the ball. That is just who they are. They run the ball 67.5% of the time. On the year, they average 211.7 yards per game on the ground, 15th in the nation. Throwing the ball they are just 119th in the country with 161.1 passing yards per game. They are right in the middle of the pack with 27.1 points per game.
The recipe for Iowa is simple. Stonewall the ground game, make Minnesota have to throw it, and benefit from using your strength against their weakness.
Mohamed Ibrahim, RB
Matt Krohn-USA TODAY Sports
Minnesota goes as Mohamed Ibrahim goes. He is a bell cow running back and this year has shown that. Minnesota relies on him to churn out first downs and win…
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