Gophers football gets national audience for Rutgers clash
The Gophers football team has won four straight following its 25-17 victory over No. 24 Illinois in Champaign, Ill., on Saturday, and it’ll be looking to extend it to five when it takes on Rutgers on Nov. 9 in Piscataway, N.J.
The Gophers and Scarlet Knights will get a national audience for the game. After the U’s win on Saturday, it was revealed the Minnesota-Rutgers game will kick off at 11 a.m. and it will be televised on NBC on Nov. 9.
With the win over Illinois, the Gophers improved to 6-3 and earned bowl eligibility. Including the game against the Scarlet Knights, Minnesota has three games remaining, and if the U can knock off Rutgers on Nov. 9, that would set up a very intriguing matchup between a 7-3 Gophers team and a 7-1 Penn State team currently ranked No. 3 in the nation.
That takes place on Nov. 23 at Huntington Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.
The Scarlet Knights didn’t play on Saturday and will be looking to snap a four-game losing skid against the Gophers. They’re 4-4 overall, but just 1-4 in the Big Ten. They most recently got crushed 42-20 by Southern Cal on Oct. 25.
The Minnesota-Rutgers game will be the fifth nationally televised game for the Gophers, and their third in a row. Their two most recent wins over Maryland and Illinois were televised on FS1; their game against Iowa on Sept. 21 was broadcast on NBC; and the nail-biter against Michigan on Sept. 28 was on FOX. They'll likely be on national TV the rest of the year.
The game against the Nittany Lions does not yet have a time or network set, but if the U beats Rutgers, that game likely gets national TV treatment, too. Minnesota's season finale at Wisconsin at 11 a.m. on Nov. 29 will be carried by CBS.