The Minnesota Golden Gophers bowl hopes hit a snag this past weekend against the Purdue Boilermakers with a stunning 49-30 loss, leaving the Gophers with a 5-7 record. Left on their schedule are the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Wisconsin Badgers with a win necessary to become bowl eligible.

Though a bowl game at 5-7 could be possible it would take several things to go P.J. Fleck and his program's way.

GET THE INSIDE SCOOP EVERY DAY WITH YOUR PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTION!

With that being said, below we take a look at which bowl games some major news outlets have projected for the Golden Gophers after their recent loss to Purdue.

Yahoo!'s Nick Bromberg has Minnesota taking on USC in the Las Vegas Bowl on December 23. The Trojans are 7-4 this season and have lost four of their last five games including last weekend to Oregon 36-27.

Mark Sclabach: Schlabach has the Gophers heading to Nashville for the TransPerfect Music City Bowl against the Auburn Tigers. It would be the Gophers' second bowl game against Auburn all time, the Gophers defeated the Tigers 31-24 in the 2020 Outback Bowl.,

CBS's Jerry Palm has the Gohpers slated to play in the Independence Bowl against Iowa State in Shreveport, Louisiana. The Gophers and Cyclones used to be common foes from 1895 to 1924 before only meeting four times since 1989. Their last meeting came in 2009 in the Insight Bowl, a 14-13 win for Iowa State.

Fox's Bryan Fisher is projecting the First Responder Bowl against San Jose State for the Gophers. It would be the fifth meeting all-time between the two programs, they last met in 2014, a 24-7 win for the Golden Gophers.

Brett McMurphy of The Action Network projects Minnesota to play West Virginia in the Armed Forces Bowl. The two teams met in 2021 for the first time ever in the Guaranteed Rate Bowl in Phoenix.

============================

- Talk about it INSIDE GOPHER NATION.

- SUBSCRIBE TO OUR PODCAST

- SUBSCRIBE TO LOGoldenGophers

- Follow us on Twitter: @MinnesotaRivals, @AlexCarlsonTGR, @SeanW_Rivals, @DylanCC_FB, @GopherKaneRob, @LOGoldenGophers, @drew_toennies

- SUBSCRIBE to The Gopher Report.