Big Ten Power Rankings Week 2: Ohio State Still On Top But Penn State Closing Gap

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA - SEPTEMBER 02: Amani Oruwariye
UNIVERSITY PARK, PA - SEPTEMBER 02: Amani Oruwariye /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
5 of 15
Next

No. 11  Minnesota (Last Week – 11)   —

SAN DIEGO, CA – DECEMBER 27: Mitch Leidner
SAN DIEGO, CA – DECEMBER 27: Mitch Leidner /

Is there a Big Ten team that played a more “blah” game than Minnesota?  The Gophers won a 17-7 snoozer over Buffalo.  To those cynics that say  ‘winning is the name of the game’, I agree, but that doesn’t mean that all wins are the same.

The win was the first for new head coach PJ Fleck.  The Gophers outscored Buffalo 14-7 in the first quarter.  After that, a mere three points combined were scored the rest of the game.  I’d like to say this was a heavyweight tilt by two of college footballs premier defenses, but that just didn’t happen.

This week Minnesota travels to Corvalis to take on the Oregon State Beavers, themselves coming off a humbling opening week loss to Colorado State.  Coach Fleck has his work cut out for him, but he was able to turn Western Michigan into a MAC power program last year.  The question remains if he will be able to do so at Minnesota.  So far, he is 1-0.