Gophers still have path to Big Ten West championship, but they need help

Gophers coach P.J. Fleck constantly guards against looking past the current opponent, instructing his team to focus on each weekly "one-game championship season.'' Saturday, the Gophers succeeded in the Fleck-branded "Northwestern championship season,'' which followed wins over Nebraska and Rutgers the previous two weeks.

By stacking up those Big Ten wins, the Gophers have worked themselves back into contention for the championship of the Big Ten West Division. After Saturday's results that featured Purdue topping first-place Illinois 31-24 in Champaign, and Iowa beating Wisconsin 24-10 in Iowa City, suddenly there's a four-way tie for first place in the West among the Gophers, Boilermakers, Fighting Illini and Hawkeyes. Each team has a 4-3 conference record.

"You guys call it the Wild, Wild West. That's exactly what it is,'' Fleck said in his postgame news conference after the Gophers dispatched Northwestern 31-3. "Who knows? The next 13 days are going to be really exciting.''

For the Gophers, there is a path to the West title and berth in the Big Ten Championship Game on Dec. 3 in Indianapolis, but they will need help. First, they must beat both Iowa on Saturday in Minneapolis and Wisconsin on Nov. 26 in Madison. Then they would need both Illinois and Purdue to lose one more game each. The Illini close with games at No. 3 Michigan and at Northwestern. The Boilermakers finish at home against Northwestern and at Indiana, both last-place teams.

The Gophers need to be a game ahead of Illinois and Purdue because they lost to both teams, and head-to-head record is the first tiebreaker. The losses to Illinois and Purdue also would sink the Gophers if they finish in a three-way tie.

Fleck was encouraged that his team has rebounded from its three-game skid in October to put itself back in the West race.

"As I said when I came here, we're not going to win it every single time; it's hard to do that,'' he said. "But we're always going to be in the hunt and do everything we can to be in the hunt. And it's fun when you're in that.''

"It doesn't matter what we did four years ago, five years ago, last year,'' safety Tyler Nubin said. "We've got to go 1-0 [against Iowa] this year. And that's what we're gonna do.''

Gophers quarterback Athan Kaliakmanis, starting in place of the injured Tanner Morgan, took a hard hit to the head from the crown of Northwestern linebacker Mac Uihlein's helmet in the second quarter. Uihlein was ejected for targeting, but Kaliakmanis didn't miss any time.

"He popped back up and he was ready for the next play,'' running back Mohamed Ibrahim said. "… He took it like a champ.''