Bret Bielema has a history with University of Minnesota football and it’s an unhappy one for Golden Gophers fans. Let’s put it this way: Bielema doesn’t receive many greeting cards with Minnesota postmarks on the envelopes.
As a head coach Bielema is 8-0 against the Gophers and he hopes to make it 9-0 Saturday in Champaign where his Big Ten West Division leading Fighting Illini are a 3.5 point underdog. While leading Wisconsin from 2006-2012, the Badgers were 7-0 against Minnesota. Then last season, Bielema’s first as Illinois head coach, he surprised a heavily favored Gopher team with a 14-6 upset in Minneapolis.
Gopher fans who harbor hard feelings can tell you the circumstances and score of the 2010 game in Madison. Deep in the fourth quarter the Badgers scored a touchdown to go ahead 41-16. With a 25-point lead, Bielema opted for an unsuccessful two-point conversion try that raised the eyebrows of the college football world. Gophers head coach Tim Brewster was angered by the strategy not to kick the extra point, and Minnesota fans found another reason to resent the Badgers, piling on the hurt of losing every year to their border rival to the east.
Bielema left the Badgers after the 2012 season to take the head coaching job at Arkansas. For whatever reasons, things didn’t work out in Fayetteville and Bielema was fired with a 29-34 record in five seasons. After a stint in the NFL, Illinois jumped on the opportunity to hire him after firing Lovie Smith who recruited successfully but didn’t see his teams live up to expectations.
Last year the Illini finished 5-7 but now are 5-1 and ranked No. 24 in the Associated Press poll of top 25 teams. The success doesn’t surprise Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck.
“Obviously, he’s one of the best college coaches—maybe of all time. You can start to see that blueprint starting to take shape over there at Illinois. I’ve got a lot of respect for what they do and who they are, especially him as a person and as a coach.”
Fleck, speaking at his weekly news conference Monday, said the Illini are “incredibly physical” and there is a lot of athleticism on the roster. “They want to just beat you up and they’ve done that to a lot of people this year. They’re a really good football team.”
The Illini hold Big Ten wins over Iowa and Wisconsin, with a three-point loss at Indiana. Bielema’s team has scored 24 points or more in four games. No longer is Bielema just relying on a power-run game that had much to do with his success at Wisconsin including three Big Ten titles. Now his teams may show formations with five wide outs or three tight ends.
Defense is really where the Illini show their prowess. Illinois has given up only three touchdowns and ranks third in the country in yards yielded per game, 227.8. Minnesota is No. 1 giving up 222 yards per game. The Gophers have allowed five touchdowns.
The Gophers, 4-1 overall and 1-1 in the Big Ten, likely need to win Saturday to have some control in contending for the program’s first-ever West Division championship. Going to No. 10 ranked Penn State with a 1-2 conference record a week from Saturday wouldn’t be a good position for the boys from Dinkytown. Two of those losses would be to division foes, while the Illini’s only conference loss came out of the division against Indiana.
Nebraska and Purdue are tied with Illinois for the division lead with 2-1 records. Purdue holds a win over the Gophers and its only league loss was to Penn State from the East Division. Nebraska’s loss came to West Division rival Northwestern.
Minnesota still has seven conference games to play, but Saturday has a must-win feel to it. Success could well be determined by players who have been injured and whether they will play Saturday. lllinois starting quarterback Tommy DeVito and playmaking wide receiver Isaiah Williams were injured in Saturday’s 9-6 win over Iowa. Key defensive players are dealing with injuries, too.
Who all will play for the Illini probably won’t be known until Saturday morning. The Gophers will have All-American tailback Mo Ibrahim returning from his ankle injury sustained September 24 at Michigan State. He didn’t play in Minnesota’s offensive malaise against Purdue, when the Gophers lost 20-10. “He is the straw that stirs the drink here,” said Ryan Burns, the Gopher authority from GopherIllustrated.
Ibrahim’s replacements against Purdue, Trey Potts and Bryce Williams, were ineffective in a game where the offense was sluggish, the defense unable to make enough big stops and good fortune didn’t seem to favor maroon and gold.
Burns said Potts and Williams didn’t break a tackle in 20 combined carries. “Trey and Bryce don’t play well. Do I expect that to happen again? No, I expect them to be able to break a tackle. It was just a strange, strange week against Purdue.”
Burns has a prediction about Saturday’s game while making the assumption key injured players will play. “Illinois’ defense is tremendous, and their offense is a work in progress, but they have a really talented running back too in Chase Brown who…leads all of college football in rushing. So it’s going to be who can get to 17 points first because whichever one does, I think they’re going to win.”
When Bielema coached at Wisconsin he said on a Big Ten basketball telecast he considered Minneapolis part of the Badgers’ recruiting territory. Over the years it’s been a sore point with Gophers fans to see the parade of Minnesota preps in football and basketball play for the Badgers. When Bielema was at Arkansas he reached into Chanhassen and made center Frank Ragnow a Razorback. Ragnow became an All-American and was a 2018 first round pick of the NFL Lions.
Illini offensive line coach Bart Miller, who held the same title in 2016 under then Minnesota head coach Tracy Claeys, is recruiting the Gopher state for Bielema. The Illini have made offers to Minnesotans including Osseo offensive lineman Jerome Williams who has verbally committed to the Gophers.
If the Gophers can keep the Illini shut out in recruiting here and deliver a win Saturday, Minnesota fans may mellow a bit about Bielema who not only was a kingpin at Wisconsin but played and coached at Iowa, that other heated border rival.
Maybe mellow (a bit).
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