When the Gophers football team played UCLA at Rose Bowl Stadium last October, more than 12,000 maroon-and-gold fans made a pilgrimage to Pasadena, Calif.
The appeal of Minnesota not having played in the Rose Bowl Game since 1962 and the U having few other marquee road games on that schedule — save for a visit to Michigan’s Big House in late September — brought them out in droves.
This season’s slate of road games, however, is the best, top-to-bottom collection of unique venues and non-traditional opponents in recent memory.
“It’s tremendous,” Gophers deputy Athletics Director Mike Wierzbicki told the Pioneer Press about the road schedule. “Fans are jacked.”
It starts Saturday with a trip to play the California Golden Bears in Memorial Stadium in Berkeley. Thousands are expected to make it to the Bay Area for the nonconference game. Cal will make a return trip to Minneapolis in September 2028.
Later this fall, the Gophers will play at Ohio State’s Horseshoe to open October and will close the month at Iowa’s Kinnick Stadium, the site of the Hawkeyes’ invalid fair catch signal in 2023 that led to Minnesota ending an eight-game losing streak in the Floyd of Rosedale rivalry with a 12-10 win.
In November, the Gophers will make their first trip to Oregon’s Autzen Stadium in Eugene and the following week will play traditional Big Ten opponent Northwestern at Wrigley Field in Chicago. The Wildcats are using the Cubs’ home ballpark part-time while construction is being done on a new $800 million Ryan Field in Evanston.
“Oregon, Cal and Northwestern at Wrigley have kind of a different luster to them,” Wierzbicki said. “… This is nothing against any competition. But even playing Northwestern in November is completely different at Wrigley Field. The energy and excitement.”
The appetizing slate of road games this year will likely mean there won’t be a spike in attendance for any one contest. Before UCLA last year, Gopher fans had turned out in big numbers in Boulder for the Colorado win in 2021, and to a lesser degree, Chapel Hill for the North Carolina loss in 2023.
The Gophers strong nonconference schedule and corresponding ho-hum home slate might have something to do with a dip in season tickets sold. The U said non-student season ticket numbers have ticked down 23,592 in 2024 to 23,085 as of Sept. 5, according to a Pioneer Press data request. Student tickets nudged down, too, from 8,013 to 7,823.
Minnesota’s schedule of games in Minneapolis features a traditional slate of Big Ten opponents — Wisconsin, Nebraska, Michigan State, Purdue, Rutgers — and two smaller nonconference games in Buffalo and Northwestern State
The Pioneer Press heard one anecdote about a family of Gophers season-ticket holders who gave up their seats this fall based on the lackluster home schedule and conflicts with kid activities. That family is instead checking off a bucket list trip to a festive environment in the Southeastern Conference. But it still follows the Gophers.
“Everyone’s always got their different reasons, right?” Wierzbicki said. “When we look at that, if someone isn’t going to renew (season tickets), our conversation is always about, ‘Well, why?’ And if the answer is, ‘You know, moving out of town or life circumstances. Or, hey, I’m gonna focus on some road trips.’ (It’s) ‘Hey, we’re happy you’re still engaged.’ If somebody chooses not to renew and then disengages. That’s maybe a little bit more telling for us.”
Bucket list abroad?
When it comes to appealing road games, it’s hard to top a trip to Ireland. That’s where Big Ten teams Nebraska and Northwestern met in 2022, followed by Notre Dame and Navy in 2023, Georgia Tech and Florida State in 2024 and Iowa State and Kansas State this August.
Would the Gophers be interested in heading to Europe for a game? Wierzbicki deferred to AD Mark Coyle and Dusty Clements, the U’s executive deputy athletics director, on a definitive answer, but gave some perspective.
“With the financials of college athletics, you’ve got to find a way that you can maximize and monetize where you can with football,” Wierzbicki said.
Wierzbicki was alluding to the financial crunch of spending $20.5 million annually in revenue sharing to student-athletes. With that new expense, the Gophers have forecast a roughly $9 million budget shortfall for this fiscal year.
“For Minnesota, it’s fair to say, those types of destination games are great, but do you really want to give up a home game?” Wierzbicki said in reference to the revenue that is generated from those events. “Is there a way that you could try to do it without giving up a home game? Maximize revenue and create unique opportunities? I think those are win-wins across the board. For anyone looking at it, thinking, ‘Hey, we’d end up losing a home game at Huntington Bank Stadium.’ I think that’s just a harder conversation to have, both from a fan-base perspective, as well as the economics of it.”
Iowa State declined to give up a home game in Ames, but Kansas State was willing to do it, according to The Athletic.
Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck, whose team is 3-0 in West Coast games at the U, didn’t jump at the possibility last week.
“There would have to be a lot of things that line up,” Fleck said on his KFAN radio show on Sept. 2. “There are a lot of people that want to do that. I’m not saying we wouldn’t, but that is something that I would probably rather do to enjoy (on a vacation). (Teams) go out there like two days before. It’s great for all of you (fans), but to take players that far … if you are getting out there like a week early and you are treating it like a bowl game, that is a little different.”
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