IOWA CITY, Iowa — There are long bus rides after tough losses, then there was the 303-mile slog the Gophers faced from Kinnick Stadium to the U’s practice facility in Minneapolis on Saturday night.
After the 41-3 loss to Iowa, the Minnesota football team had plenty of time to stew, reflect and even watch film on a group of coach busses convoying north without the company of the Floyd of Rosedale trophy.
Minnesota head coach P.J. Fleck, left, greets Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz before an NCAA college football game, Saturday, Oct. 25, 2025, in Iowa City, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Before the rivalry game, Gophers athletics director Mark Coyle talked about the chance to bring Floyd by his 87-year-old mom’s place in Waterloo, Iowa, during their trip back to Minnesota. When Coyle visited his mom before the game, she told him, “Kick their blank,” a message Coyle relayed on the KFAN pregame show while stripping out more colorful language.
Instead, the Gophers were just about blanked themselves, held to three meaningless second-half points. Iowa marched down the field on its opening drive and never looked back, galivanting their way to a 31-0 lead early in the second quarter.
Coyle has talked about Fleck’s team becoming a “tough out” in his ninth season at the helm, but in baseball terms, the Gophers had two strikes against them before they got a bat of their shoulder. On strike three, Minnesota swung late as another fastball smacked into the catcher’s mitt.
Since coming to Minnesota in 2017, Fleck is 1-8 against Iowa.
“As bad as this hurts and stings, we’ve got a four-hour bus ride for it to sting and hurt,” Fleck said in his postgame news conference. “It should. That’s not punishment. But you’re all competitors. You put a week’s work in, and half the teams in the country put all that work in, just like Iowa put in, and half of them lost, and half of them won — and we’ve got four hours on a bus ride home to really let that seep in and understand exactly why and make those corrections.”
When the Gophers rewatch the game, they will see Hawkeyes star punt returner Kaden Wetjen mocking the Gophers’ Row the Boat mantra in his celebration after his 50-yard touchdown return.
After success against Nebraska last week, the Gophers’ running game was again stuck in the mud. They rushed 25 times for 24 yards, while top tailback Darius Taylor left with an injury in the first half.
Gophers quarterback Drake Lindsey threw a career-high three interceptions. The first one Iowa returned for a touchdown, and the third gave Iowa the ball at the Gophers’ 21-yard line, setting up a touchdown.
Lindsey, a redshirt freshman, said he was going to rewatch the game once he got on the bus.
“Once I got out there, you could tell their guys are executing the scheme at the highest level,” he said. “I’ve just got to see it, react better and just play better.”
The Gophers’ defense didn’t give up a ton of total yards (274), but gave up 17 points on the opening three drives. Minnesota had a program-record nine sacks against Nebraska but managed only two against Iowa.
Anthony Smith, the Big Ten leader in sacks (seven) was held without one on Saturday. He said he wasn’t going to stew on the loss on the bus ride home and start dissecting the blowout.
“Something like this for me, I definitely want to dive back into it and see what happened,” the junior defensive lineman said. “I can only see so much from playing in the trenches. So, seeing what I can do better is definitely big for me.”
The Gophers were set to spend Sunday officially reviewing the game in the Larson Football Performance Center, then will try to turn the page to its home game against Michigan State on Saturday.
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