Minnesota Football: How to watch the Colorado game and three keys to a Gopher victory

The home and home with Colorado is going to be completed on Saturday. As you recall, the Gophers went out to Boulder last fall and thoroughly dominated the Buffs. The game ended 30-0 and for those of us who made the trip to Colorado, it was a glorious weekend.

How to Watch

TV: ESPN2
Time: 2:30
Stream: ESPN app

3 KEYS

• Defense, stay true to your reads - The Colorado offense has been anemic and this might be a game where new offensive coordinator, Mike Sanford (yes, that Mike Sanford), is going to dial up some things to kickstart his offense. The defense needs to be true to their assignments, trust the guys around them and not fall victim to trick plays.
• No turnovers - I am squarely in camp of don’t do things to lose this game, as opposed to doing the things necessary to win. No dumb turnovers, continue to build confidence offensively. I don’t see Colorado slowing this offense down.a
• Run the ball - The Buffs are giving up 7.1 yard per carry and a total of 710 yards rushing in their two games played. Surely they are working hard to correct this, but we really should be able to run the ball without much resistance.

OPPOSING PLAYERS TO WATCH

• #5 QB - JT Shrout - He’s here because there does not appear to be a dangerous player on the offense that we need to be paying attention to. So the Player to Watch defaults to quarterback. But this quarterback just completed 5 of 21 passes at Air Force and is at 40.9% completion for the season. So I’m not expecting that he’ll be torching the Gopher secondary.
• #12 LB - Quinn Perry - The team’s leading tackler on a defense that really has not made any plays behind the line of scrimmage, nor have they defended the pass with any

PREDICTION

This team is really not very good and this absolutely should be a big Gopher win. We run the ball extremely well, they have not been able to stop the run yet in their two games. Should this be a step up in competition from NMSU and WIU? It should, but it may not be very noticeable on the field. These are Power 5 caliber athletes, but they really struggled to put things together and field a competitive team.

I’m expecting another game that is really not in doubt after the first couple of possessions. At some point this team may make things closer than they ought to be, maybe things get dicier than they should. But this is another great tuneup for next week’s trip to East Lansing.

Minnesota - 31
Colorado - 9