The University of Minnesota football team hasn’t won’t a Big Ten championship since 1967 and that’s not likely to change in the foreseeable future with the conference adding premier programs from the west coast to join dominant schools in place for decades like Michigan and Ohio State.
But there is a development that realistically could sooner or later juice the Golden Gophers program—the expanded college football playoff starting in 2024. The expansion from four to 12 playoff teams should put a smile on the face of every loyal Gopher fan. Now this program can potentially be nationally relevant without winning the league title.
“P.J. and I are very excited with the 12-game expansion,” athletic director Mark Coyle told Sports Headliners.
Head coach P.J. Fleck’s 2019 team went 11-2 including an Outback Bowl win over Auburn. That group finished tied for first in the Big Ten West Division standings. Minnesota was ranked No. 10 in the country by two polls following its bowl win.
That 2019 outfit exemplifies a Gopher team worthy of being invited to participate in a 12-team playoff. As a member of the Big Ten, the Gophers belong to a conference exceeded in prestige and reputation only by the SEC. Talk this spring is those two leagues could annually have four or even five teams each in forthcoming playoffs.
Athlon Sports College Football magazine, now on newsstands, offers a projected playoff bracket for 2024-2025 that has Michigan, Ohio State, Oregon and Penn State from the Big Ten, with Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Texas from the SEC. The forecast is for a national title game between Georgia and Ohio State with the Bulldogs winning.
The College Football Playoff Selection Committee will evaluate teams including by their schedules. The SEC has an edge with its teams playing eight league games, while Big Ten programs play nine.
That difference gives Coyle pause when a visitor asks about Big Ten teams one day playing 10 conference opponents each year. The change would be appealing to fans and TV viewers, but Coyle said such a development becomes “tricky” in that an extra league game adds another loss for half the schools. “…You’ve got to win all of them (the full schedule) if you want to have a special year,” Coyle said during an interview in his campus office.
The Big Ten adds Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington this year, creating an 18-team league. The SEC expands to 16 teams with the addition of Oklahoma and Texas. Coyle said it’s going to require a couple of years to see how the committee evaluates the teams in the two conferences including wins, losses and strength of schedules.
The Gophers have a mix in quality of nonconference opponents through 2032 with college football kingpin Alabama at one extreme and Lindenwood, a program that became Division I last year, at the other. Other diverse future opponents include California, Mississippi State, North Carolina, North Dakota, Northwestern State and Rhode Island.
Coyle said Fleck is open to scheduling any school. “He never freaks out,” Coyle said about Fleck who has been leading Minnesota since 2017 and has a career third best Gopher winning percentage of .595 (among football coaches with 45 games or more).
What Fleck’s teams do on the field is critical to revenues for the self-supporting athletic department with 21 sports. The Gopher revenue streams from football, men’s basketball and men’s hockey include those they control directly such as ticket sales and fundraising. A jackpot is Minnesota’s share of TV and other revenue that comes from the Big Ten office, with USA Today reporting that in 2023 and 2024 a full league member received about $60 million.
Tony Petitti, who became Big Ten commissioner in 2023, has a career background in the business side of TV and Coyle raves about him. “He makes it clear that football is 90 percent of the revenue in the Big Ten Conference. The same thing with the SEC.”
Worth Noting
Coyle talking about men’s hockey coach Bob Motzko who took the Gophers to consecutive Final Fours in 2022 and 2023 after being hired in 2018: “The crowds are back. 3M Arena is hopping again.”
Bobby Bell, the greatest Golden Gophers football player I ever saw, turned 84 today. Bell was a two-time All-American tackle, Outland Award winner and Big Ten Conference MVP while leading the Gophers to a 22-6-1 record from 1960-1962.
Michael Hsu, the former University of Minnesota agent, has long been an advocate for treating college athletes as employees. He looks more like a prophet all the time.
It appears as soon as 2025 college football players will be sharing in revenues at their schools. Last month the NCAA and Power Five conferences settled a pending lawsuit by allowing schools to directly pay its athletes in the future. Already in place is the practice of Name, Image and Likeness money that has lined the pockets of athletes from coast to coast.
Hsu, who told Sports Headliners he doesn’t receive compensation or expect it in the future for his advocacy on behalf of college athletes as employees, has been supportive of several litigations that challenged the old amateur college sports model. Defendants included the NCAA, Ivy League and Notre Dame.
“They (the lawsuits) basically say that college athletes are being misclassified as student athletes by these organizations,” Hsu said.
What’s down the road could be classification of athletes from revenue generating sports as employees by their schools. That, of course, includes Minnesota who by next year maybe sharing about $20 million in athletic department revenue. Hsu said schools don’t want athletes to be employees because as such that will entitle them to various rights and protections including health insurance.
Hsu, who lives in the Twin Cities area and is a Gopher fan, co-founded the College Basketball Players Association. That entity is dedicated to current, future and past college players and advocates for their rights including “health, safety and welfare,” per the CBPA website.
The Lynx, winners of three straight and having a 10-3 record, remain No. 2 in The Athletic’s latest WNBA power rankings. The Liberty, 12-2, is still No. 1 in the 12-team league.
Murray always said that Bobby (Bell) was the best player he ever coached! Kept his All-American poster.
While I would love to see the U make the 12-team football playoffs every year, I cannot really even fathom how one would look at the new playoff as “a breath of fresh air” for this program. This is a school that has a history of being ranked in the top 12 in any AP poll at any point in the season….two total times since 1963.
Eighteen major programs in the Big Ten, now no divisions, and the rich getting even more richer. I can’t see it. The fresh air for them (the Gophers) was the two-division era of the Big Ten where most of the regular season you had the illusion a team like Minnesota was always in it to get to Indianapolis. Now you’re possibly having an OK season but finishing…13th in your conference, maybe. How do you sell this to fans and your own players as the weeks go on?