Gophers’ Max Brosmer, Quinn Carroll say they’ll definitely play in the team’s bowl game

A compressed week brought on because of Friday’s regular-season finale at Wisconsin meant that coach P.J. Fleck, his offensive and defensive coordinators and a quartet of players fulfilled their media obligations on Monday rather than spreading them out over three days.

While the focus this week is playing the Badgers in Camp Randall Stadium with Paul Bunyan’s Axe at stake, a trio of Gophers revealed their plans for the not-to-distant future.

• Quarterback Max Brosmer, the graduate transfer from New Hampshire who has NFL aspirations, said he will play in the Gophers’ bowl game, which will be announced Dec. 8. “I’m definitely playing,” said Brosmer, who also has accepted an invitation to the Hula Bowl all-star game. “It’s a really cool experience, especially for someone coming from a smaller division, having the ability to play in a bowl game. That’s another opportunity for us to play as a team and accomplish what we’ve worked on all season.”

• Senior guard Quinn Carroll also will play in the bowl game rather than leave early to prepare for the NFL draft. “I want to set a standard, and that’s been my goal ever since I came here – to be the leader, to be the standard all the time. I don’t want it to become a standard that you don’t play in the bowl game if you have NFL aspirations. Obviously, it’s different for guys who are maybe touted a little bit higher or think it would be better off for them to start working on the next step.”

• Defensive tackle Jalen Logan-Redding, a fifth-year junior, said he will return to the team for his final season in 2025. “Coming back next year is definitely going to be the best for me, being able to maximize all my opportunities,” said Logan-Redding, who has 26 tackles and five QB pressures this season.

On Friday, the Gophers (6-5, 4-4 Big Ten) will have an opportunity to bolster their bowl resume and keep Wisconsin (5-6, 3-5) from reaching six wins to secure bowl eligibility. The rivalry is not lost on Carroll, a three-year starter and Edina native who transferred to Minnesota from Notre Dame.

“It means a lot to me. Growing up, it was like, the game,” said Carroll, whose father, Jay, was a Gophers tight end in the early 1980s. “… Some of those old linemen dominating in this sort of game was really special to watch as a kid, and then to grow up learning from them and now to play in it is even more special.”

The Gophers under Fleck have changed the rivalry with Wisconsin from one-sided to even. The Badgers won 14 straight in the series from 2004 to ‘17, but the teams have split the past six meetings.

Minnesota will try to secure the Axe with Fleck as coach for the third time at Camp Randall Stadium – where they celebrated by emptying cans of Axe Body Spray in 2018 and smoked cigars in the locker room in 2022. To do so, they’ll need to recover quickly from their 26-25 loss to No. 4 Penn State on Saturday.

“It’s a tough, tough loss,” Brosmer said. “… Things are going to go one way or another, and you have to live with it, with the result, and go back to the tape and correct what you can correct and build upon the positives.”

Fleck sees parallels on how the team came together after a 27-24 loss at Michigan on Sept. 28 and how players reacted Saturday. The Gophers won four games in a row following the loss in Ann Arbor. Friday, they’ll try to halt their current skid at two games.

“What’s really hard when it comes down to that one possession or that one point, and you come up short, you’re looking them all in the eye, and they’re looking at you like, ‘What’s next? What do we do now?’” Fleck said. “And I think that’s the challenging part, but this team has responded all year.”