Max Brosmer can cement his Gophers legacy in bowl game vs. Virginia Tech

I guess what they’re saying is “having fun is wrong.”

Well, what’s the point of living at all

If you can’t go out and make some damn good memories?

— Max Brosmer, from his 2023 song, “Old Jack Daniels”

One year ago, a star quarterback playing for a Football Championship Subdivision team pushed all of his chips to the center of the table. He wanted the challenge of playing at college football’s top level, the Football Bowl Subdivision, where he could gauge himself against the best and hopefully attract the attention of NFL teams.

Max Brosmer — armed with a résumé at New Hampshire that included being a top-three finalist for the Walter Payton Award, the FCS version of the Heisman Trophy — entered the speed-dating world that is college football’s transfer portal. Brosmer believed his productivity as a three-year starter and his leadership traits would be attractive to a team in a Power Four conference.

At the same time, Gophers coach P.J. Fleck and his top offensive lieutenant, Greg Harbaugh Jr., needed a quarterback and a leader, pronto. Quickly, each side swiped right, and on Dec. 3, 2023, Brosmer committed to the Gophers as a graduate transfer.

The hope is that Brosmer’s influence also will carry forward with Drake Lindsey, the true freshman QB who’s soaking up as much knowledge as he can from his mentor.

“It’s been about a year now, and I actually get to be a part of it and play with this team,” said Brosmer, who accompanied the Gophers to the Quick Lane Bowl last year but wasn’t yet eligible to play. “… You realize how fast it actually went.

“I feel comfortable knowing that I didn’t take any day for granted. I put in as much effort as I could every single day, which is something I could hang my hat on. And that was the ideology of this team, too.”

The 2023 season had been a step back for the program. Although a walk-off win over Nebraska in the opener and a skid-busting triumph at Iowa were highlights, the Gophers closed the regular season with four consecutive losses and a 5-7 record. They landed in the Quick Lane Bowl because of their academic record and beat Bowling Green 30-24 to finish 6-7.

It wasn’t just the losing record. Minnesota’s inefficiency in the passing game was tough to watch. The Athan Kaliakmanis experiment did not go well in 2023, with the third-year sophomore completing only 53.1% of his passes. The Gophers produced only 143.4 passing yards per game, which ranked 126th nationally.

Upon committing to the Gophers, Brosmer — who dabbles in country music and relaxes by playing chess — quickly became a team leader, taking in the bowl practices, asserting himself during winter workouts and organizing a training trip for his pass-catchers to his parents’ Georgia home. Throughout spring practice and training camp, he also built a sentence-completing bond with Harbaugh, the offensive coordinator, quarterbacks coach and primary play-caller.

“As every game went on,” Harbaugh said, “we just got more comfortable with each other, and it happened quickly.”

The results, though, weren’t immediate. Brosmer passed for 165 yards in a 19-17 loss to North Carolina in his Gophers debut, earning a season-low 53.7 offensive grade from Pro Football Focus, which considers a 60.0 grade as average.

He completed 80% of his passes (24-for-30) in a 48-0 rout of FCS level Rhode Island and was solid vs. Nevada, but losses to Iowa and No. 12 Michigan left the Gophers with a 2-3 record and Brosmer with six TD passes vs. four interceptions.

The Gophers and Brosmer had their circle-the-wagons moment in the second half of the 27-24 loss at Michigan, as the QB led three fourth-quarter touchdown drives, going 10-for-16 for 96 yards in the final 15 minutes. A controversial offsides call that wiped out a successful onside kick denied the Gophers a chance to complete the comeback.

A week later, he found Darius Taylor — his fifth option on the play — for a 4-yard TD pass with 27 seconds left in a 21-17 victory over UCLA. Brosmer had a 93.5 PFF rating in a 48-23 victory over Maryland and led a fourth-quarter rally in a 25-17 victory at No. 24 Illinois.

After the Gophers lost to Rutgers and Penn State, they closed the regular season with a 24-7 win at Wisconsin, in which Brosmer passed for two TDs, rushed for one and had a season-best 93.7 rating from PFF. That analytics website has him tied for 17th among FBS quarterbacks with an 89.7 overall grade and fifth with a passing play grade of 90.1.

Fleck calls Brosmer “the best processor I’ve ever been around,” and that has led to the QB completing 66.8% of his passes. He’s within reach of Tanner Morgan’s single-season school record of 66.9%, set in 2022.

“The more people throw at him, the more he can keep processing and make adjustments and make changes,” Fleck said. “To take all the information that he’s been able to get, it’s probably the most complex offense we’ve ever had in 12 years of me being a head football coach, and he processes it like it’s the easiest. And I never take that for granted.”

Said Harbaugh: “The thing I keep trickling down to the other guys in the [quarterback] room is, ‘If the picture doesn’t look right, what’s your solution?’ His solution was excellent decisions all year.”

“You can either waste a year, or you can utilize it,” Harbaugh said. “I know what [Lindsey’s] process has been. I know how hard he’s worked. I know how every single week he’s prepared as if he’s going out there for Play One, and that’s a challenge. … He’s just continued to get better every single rep. It’s not every single practice, it’s every single rep."

With his only career bowl game left to play, Brosmer allowed himself to think about those good memories he’s made in his brief Gophers career. He has several plays on his list of favorites but hasn’t ranked them yet.