Gophers run over Louisiana after shaky start
The Golden Gophers overcame a rough start and turned a halftime deficit into a 35-24 win over the Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns in Minneapolis on Saturday afternoon.
It wasn't pretty at the outset as the Gophers' defense, which was shredded and allowed 21 points in the fourth quarter of last week's overtime loss to Northwestern, gave up a 10-play, 75-yard touchdown drive for an early 7-0 deficit.
Minnesota trailed 17-14 at the half and then responded by outscoring Louisiana 21-7 the rest of the way, highlighted by a defense that intercepted Zeon Chriss twice and a rushing attack that went for 201 yards on the day.
"I was really proud of the resolve and the resilience right out of halftime," Minnesota head coach P.J. Fleck said on Big Ten Network after the game. "I really liked how our offense responded."
The Gophers didn't have star freshman running back Darius Taylor due to injury, so the ground attack featured redshirt freshman Zach Evans (15 carries, 85 yards, 1 TD), Bryce Williams (15 carries, 53 yards, 1 TD) and Sean Tyler (10 carries, 47 yards).
Evans and Williams each scored in the second half.
The Gophers' passing attack wasn't explosive but Athan Kaliakmanis completed 12 of 14 passes for 146 yards and two touchdowns to Daniel Jackson, who led Minnesota with five catches for 89 yards.
The victory gets the Gophers (3-2) back in the win column after back-to-back losses ahead of next week's primetime showdown against No. 2 Michigan.
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.