Overnight field goal, good grades gift Gophers a bowl game
By the grace of field goal that sailed through the uprights just before 1:30 a.m. CT Sunday, the Minnesota Golden Gophers are going bowling.
What? It’s true. Let’s explain…
When Hawaii beat Colorado State with a 52-yard field goal as time expired, it made the Gophers bowl eligible even though P.J. Fleck’s team finished the regular season 5-7.
There are 42 bowl games but only 81 teams won at least six games to secure bowl bids. That left one opening for the 5-win team with the best Academic Progress Rating in the country and that team just happened to be Minnesota.
Hawaii forgot to spike & had a hurry up field goal for the win 😂 pic.twitter.com/FZFhtYsMdm
— Will (@SpartanWilliam) November 26, 2023
Colorado State had five wins and the walk-off field goal prevented them from reaching the six wins needed to automatically qualify.
The NCAA released the academic progress rates on Saturday and Minnesota ranked eighth in the nation among the 133 Division I football teams.
The specific bowl game Minnesota will play in will be announced later, but the game will give the Gophers a chance to end the season with a victory — or head into the offseason on a 5-game losing streak.
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.