Gophers after 6-win season in 2023: ‘It didn’t sit well with anybody’

Gophers 6-win season in 2023 'didn't sit well with anybody'

The Gophers football team had local media day for the 2024 season on Thursday at Athletes Village after going 6-7 last season.

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - The University of Minnesota football team hosted its local media day on Thursday, but it wasn’t a day of rainbows and unicorns for the Gophers.

Usually media day is about excitement for the season and beaming with optimism. The Gophers enter the 2024 season coming off five regular season wins in 2023, the first time that’s happened since 2017, not counting the seven-game COVID-19 season. They finished just 3-6 in Big Ten play.

"It didn’t sit well, obviously. It didn’t sit well with anybody," linebacker Jack Henderson said.

It broke a trend of the Gophers winning at least nine games in a season three of the past four years. That started with the historic 11-2 run in 2019. They went 9-4 in 2021 and 2022. In 2023, they blew a three-touchdown fourth quarter lead at Northwestern in an overtime loss, fell to Illinois 27-26 and couldn’t hang with Purdue in a 49-30 loss.

They also lost the regular season finale to Wisconsin, 28-14, and needed a high APR score to get to the Quick Lane Bowl in Detroit. They don’t have to look very far for motivation.

"Having a season like that being a source for motivation, it’s not ideal. You’d rather have positive things motivate you. Sometimes you need a kick in the butt, what we did last year didn’t work," defensive lineman Danny Striggow said. "We’re going to use that to change how we work this year."

The Gophers’ defense will look different this year. Joe Rossi left for Michigan State, and Corey Hetherman is in. Minnesota has six defensive linemen back, has a healthy linebacker corps but questions remain in the secondary.

So what will the calling card of this defense be?

"We really talked about three things all offseason: Excitement, swarm and violence. Guys are violent in everything they’re doing right now," Striggow said.

Cody Lindenberg is back healthy after missing the first month of last season with an injury suffered in fall camp. He says the defense has embraced the new buzz words.

"You get an opportunity every play, whether it’s during indy, during a 7-on-7 rep or it’s live versus the offense, we’re competing with each other in that one play, one game, one scrimmage. Whatever it might be, you have the opportunity do all three of those things in each and every play you do," Lindenberg said.

National expectations are low for the Gophers, with most casinos putting their over/under win total at 4.5 or 5. Fleck enters his eighth season at Minnesota 50-34 overall, 29-32 in Big Ten play and 5-0 in bowl games.

The defense will have to take a step in 2024. The Big Ten is adding Washington, Oregon, USC and UCLA this year, and divisions are gone. It all starts against North Carolina on Aug. 29 at Huntington Bank Stadium, a game you can watch on FOX 9.