November brings Big Ten title shot for Gophers football

November reign or November pain.

For the Gophers football team, those are the two ends of the spectrum as they enter the final month of the regular season. Beginning Saturday against Illinois, the Gophers have a four-game stretch that will determine if they can win the Big Ten's West Division and advance to the conference championship game in Indianapolis for the first time.

Their other three games are trips to Iowa on Nov. 13 and Indiana on Nov. 20, and the season finale at home against Wisconsin on Nov. 27.

Minnesota (4-1 Big Ten) leads the West by one game over Wisconsin (3-2), Iowa (3-2) and Purdue (3-2). The path to Indy is straightforward for the Gophers: Go 4-0 in November, and the division title is theirs. That is easier said than done, given their 1-7 record against Iowa and Wisconsin during coach P.J. Fleck's tenure.

"I always remember the saying, 'They remember November,' '' Gophers defensive tackle Nyles Pinckney said. "The situation we're in, having control of the West, we just have to do our jobs and play one championship game each week. We're not worried about down the road; we're just worried about this one game this week.''

The Gophers could win the West with a 3-1 finish, and that likely would require them to beat both Iowa and Wisconsin. If they lose to either the Hawkeyes or Badgers, they would be in trouble in terms of the head-to-head tiebreaker and would need Iowa or Wisconsin to absorb a third conference defeat. Minnesota holds the tiebreaker over Purdue, which still must play Michigan State and Ohio State.

What would help the Gophers most is a November breakthrough. Since the Big Ten split into divisions in 2011, they've had five Novembers with a 2-2 record and four with a 1-3 mark. This excludes the 2020 pandemic-impacted schedule that stretched into mid-December. In both 2019 and 2014, Minnesota's season finale against Wisconsin was a de facto West title game, and the Badgers prevailed in each.

The Gophers' last undefeated November was in 2006, when they went 3-0 with wins over Indiana, Michigan State and Iowa. Their last winning November (excluding 2020) was 2-1 in 2010, when, under interim coach Jeff Horton, they lost to Michigan State, then beat Illinois and Iowa.