Can Gophers find a path to break out of four-team tie and win the Big Ten West?

In college football, the games in November are the games to remember, and that certainly applies to the Gophers this season.

By defeating Michigan State 27-12 on Saturday, the Gophers closed the first two months of their season with a 5-3 overall record and a 3-2 mark in the Big Ten. With four November games to play — home vs. Illinois, at Purdue, at Ohio State and home vs. Wisconsin — the Gophers have their main goals ahead of them, if they can grab them.

The first available is bowl eligibility, and they'll attain that with one more win. Of course, making it to six victories is only a milepost on what this team wants to accomplish. The next achievement is the one that's eluded them so far — advancing to the Big Ten championship game in Indianapolis as West Division champions.

The Gophers have been close in coach P.J. Fleck's previous six seasons. They shared the title in 2019 with Wisconsin, which went to Indy because the Badgers won the season-ending head-to-head matchup. A victory over the Badgers, or over Iowa two weeks earlier, would have given the Gophers the title outright. In 2021, a victory over Iowa would have put the Gophers in Indy. Same thing last year had they beaten Purdue.

This time with one month to play, the Gophers sit atop the West standings in a four-way tie with Iowa, Nebraska and Wisconsin. The straightforward path to the West title for the Gophers is to win their final four games. With unbeaten and third-ranked Ohio State on the schedule, that seems unlikely.

Should they go 3-1 with a loss to Ohio Sate and finish 6-3 in the conference, the Gophers would hope to be in a tie for first with either Iowa, Nebraska or Wisconsin, a trio against whom they would own head-to-head tiebreakers in this scenario. If they end up tied for first with Northwestern, the Wildcats would advance based on their 37-34 overtime win over the Gophers on Sept. 23.

Will the Gophers be good enough to win the West? That will play out in November.

Saturday's game showed they have improved but still seek consistency. A rough start in which the Gophers fumbled away the ball on their first two possessions, had a field-goal attempt blocked and trailed 6-0 irked Fleck.

"The first five possessions were empty possessions," he said.

The Minnesota defense — rounding into form since the 52-10 loss to No. 2 Michigan — limited the damage by forcing Michigan State to kick field goals immediately after the turnovers. That helped the offense get its footing and allowed Athan Kaliakmanis to heat up. Kaliakmanis went 8-for-11 passing for 156 yards in the second quarter, setting up a field goal with a 30-yard hookup to tight end Brevyn Spann-Ford and hitting Daniel Jackson for a 22-yard TD pass for a 10-6 lead with 19 seconds left in the first half. On that go-ahead drive, Kaliakmanis found Jackson three times for 53 yards and Corey Crooms Jr. once for 30.

"I watched incremental pieces and parts keep coming together," Fleck said of Kaliakmanis. "Things he didn't do last week, he did [Saturday]. There were some things that were in the dirt last week. [Saturday], they were on the money to Daniel."

The Gophers showed off the depth of their running back group when Jordan Nubin, a converted defensive back who entered the season fifth at best on their depth chart, rushed 40 times for 204 yards and two touchdowns. Nubin carried the ball 21 times for 134 yards after halftime as the Gophers methodically pulled away.

"We were moving the ball, and we felt we needed to dominate the line of scrimmage," Fleck said. "We got to take over the game."

By taking over the game against the Spartans, losers of six in a row, the Gophers handled business for another week. Now comes the fun part: the chance to make November one to remember.