‘Don’t give up on this team’ after Gophers loss to Iowa – Twin Cities

The Gophers were unable to stop the Iowa Hawkeyes from running the football in the second half Saturday, leaving Minnesota with Floyd of Rosedale.

As the bronze Hog trophy made its way south following a 31-14 loss, head coach PJ Fleck also tried to keep Gopher fans from leaving the stadium. The postgame press conference had just ended when Fleck added a final comment.

“I just want to thank our crowd,” Fleck said of the announced attendance of 52,048 at Huntington Bank. “I want to thank our fans and our student body, once again sold out, a maroon out. The place rocked. I mean, rocked. And I can't tell you how much I appreciate that, because the head coach and our players appreciate that. That's a really special atmosphere at Huntington Bank that our fans create.”

“And don't give up on this team,” Fleck continued. “This team has a lot of playing time left, I promise you that. And we're going to give it everything we've got. We're going to learn from the second half, I promise that. We're going to get this right.”

The Gophers fell to 2-2 this season and 0-1 early in Big Ten play. Their next two games against higher-ranked teams should be much tougher than Saturday's.

Minnesota will play its first road game of the season on Saturday against the defending national champion Michigan Wolverines in Ann Arbor at 11 a.m. Then the U will host Southern Cal in Minneapolis on Oct. 5. The Gophers will be clear underdogs against those traditionally top teams, but first they need to figure out what went so wrong after halftime on Saturday.

Fleck's processing was to begin immediately after the game ended at 10 p.m. on Saturday. First, he arrived at the postgame media session much earlier than usual. Then he planned to watch the film immediately, reflect on the game on Sunday morning and watch it again.

“Then you feel a lot better when you're back with the guys,” Fleck said. “I think (on Sunday) it's going to be really important for us to get back together and talk about what happened and why it happened. Then you have to have that goldfish mentality. You have to be able to move on because the next one is coming.”

After the Gophers' season-opening loss to North Carolina, a rectangular fishbowl filled with orange goldfish was placed in the lobby of the Larson Football Performance Center to symbolize the famous line from “Ted Lasso” that goldfish are the happiest animals in the world because they have a 10-second memory.

“First, we have to make sure everyone is in the right frame of mind,” defensive player Jalen Logan-Redding said of the comeback. “Obviously, it's hard to deal with a loss, but at the end of the day. I told them in the locker room: That's what makes teams great. You react to a loss, you learn from it. And we as football players become better people because of it.”

The Gophers have lost two 14-7 halftime leads – against North Carolina in the season opener on Aug. 29 and against Iowa on Saturday. Minnesota finished both first halves strong but saw both games slip away after the locker room.

“It's the same every game, you look back and look for things you can improve,” quarterback Max Brosmer said. “You find things you can improve everywhere – whether it's execution of plays or energy. It turns out we could do better next time with energy.”