Gophers aim to play "With Emotion, Not Emotional" against slumping Spartans
The Minnesota Golden Gophers are coming off a disappointing 41-3 loss to the Iowa Hawkeyes last weekend in Iowa City and will look to bounce back this Saturday at home against the Michigan State Spartans.
The Spartans entered the season as a potential team to watch in the Big Ten in the second year of the Jonathan Smith era. The Spartans started the season strong with a 3-0 record; however, they have now lost five straight games, all in Big Ten play. The Spartans have lost each of those five games by at least 11 points.
But Minnesota coach P.J. Fleck knows that this is a Spartans’ team capable of changing their fortunes thanks to a talented offense and a defense that is coming off their best conference performance of the season against rival Michigan.
However, the Gophers are also going to have to be in the right mental state heading into Saturday afternoon, playing with emotional but not playing emotionally, following last week’s loss to Iowa.
“There’s a difference between playing with emotion, being full of emotion, and being emotional,” Fleck said on Monday. “Emotion is tied to response; it’s a trained behavior, you’re prepared for the environment, you’re prepared for the situation, you don’t let circumstance dictate your behavior, that’s emotion.”
“Emotional is when you cross that boundary, where the circumstance will dictate your behavior,” he continued. “It’s a reaction based on how society wants us to react.”
Instead, he wants his program to play steady emotionally, taking the ebbs and flows of the game in stride.
“It’s being able to be the standard, through the really good times and the really hard times,” Fleck continued. “Not take anything for granted, I think that’s, there’s a big difference between crossing that line. We don’t want to be, we don’t want to cross that line into emotional, that’s really like the undisciplined piece, it’s the reactionary piece.”
“We’re 0-1 in the Iowa season, and it wasn’t very good, and I get that, but that was one game, and before we knew it, eight plays into it, we’re down 17-0. Unfortunately, in our losses, we’ve been down pretty early, and some other games that we’ve come back and win, we’ve been down pretty early, a very different formula than maybe what we’ve had with other seasons, but this is why it’s a 2025 season, it’s not the same as other seasons, as you can see in the world of college football right now.”
While ensuring his team is mentally prepared to bounce back, Fleck and the Gophers are also working hard on preparing for the Spartans.
“I think everything starts with the quarterback,” Fleck said about the Michigan State offense. “He’s really agile; he extends plays constantly. They’ve got a really good receiver in (Nick) Marsh; they’ve got a bunch of other guys who are big, long, fast. They’re putting points up against anybody that they play.”
The Spartans this season are averaging 26.2 points per game, ranking 78th in college football. In conference play, the Spartans’ offense has taken a step back, averaging just 20.8 points per game.
“When you look at their offense, they want to establish the ground game. Just typical Big Ten football,” he continued to say about the Spartans’ offense. “You’ve got to be able to limit what the quarterback does and how he does it, you’ve got to be able to eliminate the run, and you’ve got to be able to eliminate some of the big-time threats on the outside, but everything starts with the quarterback.”
On paper, Spartans’ quarterback Aidan Chiles’ season doesn’t stand out overwhelmingly. He’s completed 63.1% of his passes for 1,392 yards and 10 touchdowns with three interceptions. Fleck doesn’t care about the stats.
“I don’t look at all the stats,” he said. “I look at how the kid plays, and he plays his heart out, from quarterback sneaks, to doing a lot of the dirty work, to throwing the ball down the field, to getting hard yards, to being a great athlete and extending plays. He’s doing a really good job, that’s for sure.”
Defensively, the Spartans have struggled in 2025. Their 32.5 points allowed per game ranks 119th in college football. They are coming off one of their better performance in conference play this past weekend. Allowing 31 points and 362 total yards to the Wolverines. They did, notably, keep Michigan true freshman quarterback Bryce Underwood to a quiet day of just 8-of-17 for 86 yards.
The Spartans’ defense is led by former Minnesota defensive coordinator Joe Rossi, who was in the Twin Cities from 2019 through 2023.
“They play exceptionally hard,” Fleck said about the Spartans’ defense. “When you watch his defense, it looks like our defense, the way they play, how hard they play.”
“They are really deep up front defensively,” Fleck noted about the Spartans. “Tackle really well at linebacker, they got some really good corners, they love to press coverage, they believe in their guys on the perimeter, and the back end, and he mixes it up a lot, and that’s Joe Rossi’s defense, keep you guessing, keep things in front, and he does a really good job at the simple things.”
The Gophers’ coach was also highly complimentary of his former assistant.
“Coach Rossi did a tremendous amount for this program, and the University of Minnesota, and I have a lot of respect for him and what he’s done,” Fleck said. “He’s got an unbelievable family, he’s a great husband, great father, just an awesome man.”
The Gophers and Spartans will kick off on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. CT at Huntington Bank Stadium. The game will be televised on the Big Ten Network.
