Drake Lindsey passed for 290 yards and two touchdowns in his debut and Darius Taylor rushed for 141 yards on 30 carries to help Minnesota wear down Buffalo 23-10 in their season opener on Thursday night.
Jameson Geers had four catches for 38 yards and a score and redshirt freshman Jalen Smith jogged into the end zone with a wide-open 60-yard reception in the fourth quarter to make up for a couple of earlier drops. The Gophers ended the game with a 16-play, 58-yard drive that drained 9:45 off the clock.
“That's a shoutout to the o-line, the running backs, tight ends, receivers. I mean, they blocked their butts off,” Lindsey said. “That’s really big time. That’s a great way to finish.”
New defensive coordinator Danny Collins had his group flying all over the field, as the Gophers stifled Bulls senior Al-Jay Henderson, a 1,000-yard rusher last season, holding him to 25 yards on 11 attempts. Ta'Quan Roberson, in his first start at quarterback after transferring from Kansas State, went 12 for 20 for 107 yards with a 40-yard touchdown pass to Victor Snow.
"Our team is really, really excited to be 1-0," said head coach P.J. Fleck. "We're humbled to be 1-0, and now we gotta go get better."
Brady Denaburg made all three of his field goal tries and two extra points in his first game for the Gophers after transferring from Syracuse, taking the edge off three stalled drives inside the 20-yard line. Another red-zone possession ended with a stuffed tush-push run by Geers on fourth-and-1 at the 11.
A fluke bounce
Lindsey, a redshirt freshman from Arkansas, finished 19 for 35 with one interception in the second quarter that was simply bad luck.
Geers ran a crossing route into Mitchell Gonser's zone, when the linebacker delivered a hockey-style check that leveled the fifth-year tight end. Lindsey threw to where he expected Geers to be, and whenhis foot went airborne while his back hit the ground, the ball hit the top of it and bounced straight into Gonser's arms. Taylor tracked him down to save a touchdown and limit him to a 54-yard return.
“That was a wild experience,” Lindsey said. “Great play by the guy, but I’ve never seen something like that.”
The takeaway
“That was a really good opponent we played,” Fleck said. “I've played in that league. I've coached in that league. This is their Super Bowl, and we got everything they had.”
Minnesota: The Gophers soft-launched their two-way deployment of sophomore safety Koi Perich, who took a handful of snaps on offense and caught Lindsey’s first pass for 12 yards. Perich, a second-team preseason AP All-America pick, had two tackles on defense and four fair catches on punts with one 18-yard return.
Up next
Minnesota plays at home on Sept. 6 against FCS foe Northwestern State, which took a 20-game losing streak into this season.