Minnesota Football vs. Illinois Fighting Illini: Staff Predictions

4-0. That’s a really nice place for the Minnesota to be. This week? The always terrifying Fighting Illini. They really have the staff worried, as you’ll soon see.

The predictions

This week’s thoughts

Blake Ruane: Illinois has athletes at the skill positions, so the Gopher defense will need to tackle better than they did against Purdue. But the porous Illini defense shouldn’t pose much of a challenge for Minnesota’s offense.

GoAUpher: Until proven otherwise, I’m going to keep predicting close wins. That said, I don’t think the game will feel as close as it might appear.

gopherguy05: Illinois seems to be able to run the ball decently well and with the weather loking like hot garbage for Saturday that may be a plus for them. So n, I don’t think Tanner is going to throw all over the Illini like he did Purdue but Minnesota should beat this team semicomfortably.

Gopher Nation: The defense scores 5 touchdowns as the Gophers take out last year’s bad loss on the Illini. GoAUpher Note: I’m pretty sure GN is kidding, but we give out Homer of the Week to the person with the biggest margin of victory regardless of whether it’s a bit. Congrats GN!

HipsterGopher: In 1903 Minnesota was co-champion of the Western Conference and Illinois was bad, so I’m picking the score from 11/14/1903 cuz this year is similar. NOTE: My bit for guessing the scores this year will be to match them up with previous Minnesota games. I’m going to be extremely correct on all of these.

mowe0018: I hope the margin of victory is larger but I don’t dare pick Minnesota to cover until proven otherwise.

UStreet: Refs call holding. Minnesota’s offense builds on last week

wildcat00: The Gophers are going to win, but I still have nightmares from 2014 and Illinois, so I don’t want to think about this one too much.

White Speed Receiver: Illinois isn’t good, but the rules say we can only win by 1 score. So a 1-score win it is!

zipsofakron: Ordinarily I’d pick Illinois expecting the Gophers to look past the Illini, but I think they learned their lesson last year and are focused on rolling over the teams they should be rolling over. I think they win comfortably. And by “comfortably” I mean only giving us a mild heart attack.

Season “record” so far

(click here for larger image)

Tell us your predictions in the poll below and in the comments!