Minnesota Football vs. Illinois: Staff Predictions

I hope the Minnesota Golden Gophers are feeling better than The Daily Gopher staff coming out of the bye week. After two weeks to stew on the loss to Purdue and watch as the Illinois Fighting Illini surged to the top of the Big Ten West with wins over Wisconsin and Iowa, our well has been poisoned and doubt has started to infect our predictions.

The Predictions:

This Week’s Thoughts:

Blake: See my opponent preview.

GoAUpher: Here’s to an offensive line performance that isn’t, well, offensive. If the offensive line plays as it has every week but Purdue, I think this will be a close but happy game.

gopherguy05: This one will be tight and low scoring, but hopefully with Illinois more banged up than Minnesota coming off of a bye, it will make the difference.

GopherNation: Just don’t feel good about this one.

HipsterGopher: Looking at old scores is my bit. This week I threw it back all the way to 2021. Last year, Illinois won 14-6. This time the good guys score 14 points and get the Bret monkey off their backs.

mowe0018: I’m doing this for you, the people. To paraphrase Sidra Holland, “The reverse jinx is real and it’s spectacular.”

Ustreet: RB1 is way better than RB2.

WhiteSpeedReceiver: I hate this game.

wildcat00: I did not feel this way a couple of weeks ago, but I’m not confident the Gophers can take the Fighting BERTs now.

zipsofakron: I don’t like this any more than you do, but I already feel queasy about Saturday. Something about “Top 25 Illinois on the road” doesn’t scream “bounce-back” to me.

Post your score predictions in the comments!