Minnesota Football Game Balls: Gophers see new faces emerge in loss to California
The Minnesota football program took its first loss of the 2025 season on Saturday night in Berkeley, California, a 27-14 loss to the California Golden Bears. Despite the loss, there were several promising individual performances.
Gophers Nation hands out game balls to three Golden Gophers from their loss to California. Today, two offensive players got game balls, while one defensive player also earned a nod.
RB Fame Ijeboi
Minnesota entered the game already missing starting running back Darius Taylor, and early in the game lost No. 2 tailback A.J. Turner. After Turner’s injury, the Gophers turned to redshirt freshman Fame Ijeboi to take on most of the workload. The Pennsylvania native was impressive in relief with 16 carries for 85 yards, an average of 5.3 yards per run. He was the only Gophers running back in the game to average over four yards per carry. With Turner’s availability going forward in question, Ijeboi has made his pitch to be the Gophers’ No. 2 tailback.
It was a career day for wide receiver Le’Meke Brockington. The veteran wide receiver had eight receptions for 106 yards in the game, an average of 13.3 yards per reception. He was by far Drake Lindsey’s favorite target throughout the game with 12 targets. Before Saturday night, Brockington’s best game as a Gopher was just two receptions for 55 yards. With his performance, he increased his season totals to 10 receptions for 136 yards. Last season, he had 18 receptions for 282 yards and one touchdown in 13 games played.
Stony Brook defensive tackle Rushawn Lawrence had himself a quality game with four tackles, including three solo tackles. He also found his way into the Cal backfield quite a bit and racked up two tackles for loss in the process. It’s a strong building block performance for Lawrence as the Gophers enter Big Ten play.
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