Believe it or not, January has already flown by. The Minnesota Golden Gophers football program had an extremely busy first 31 days of the season as they played in a bowl game, officially added a strong transfer portal class, saw several coaching staff changes, and more.

Below, Gophers Nation goes over five key storylines and takeaways from January.

The biggest storyline of January was likely that the Minnesota Golden Gophers were back in the defensive coordinator market (kind of), as defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman was hired by the Miami Hurricanes for the same position. In his lone season with the Gophers, Hetherman's defense allowed just 16.9 points per game and 285.7 yards per game while finishing top-15 in both rushing defense and passing defense categories. The poaching of Hetherman came just a month after the defensive coordinator signed an extension with Minnesota that would've kept him with the program through 2026 and rewarded him with a salary increase of $1.2 million. It's unclear what Miami will be playing Hetherman.

The Gophers continued their postseason dominance under head coach P.J. Fleck on January 3 when they defeated Virginia Tech 24-10 in the Duke Mayo Bowl. Under Fleck, the Gophers are now 6-0 in bowl games and have made bowl games in each of their last four seasons. They also have an 8-0 record in bowl games dating back to the 2015 season. In their win over Virginia Tech, Max Brosmer was 18-for-29 for 211 yards and one touchdown while Darius Taylor totaled 130 yards from scrimmage and a touchdown while also throwing a 10-yard touchdown. The win also provided us with an epic celebration from P.J. Fleck.

With the start of the new semester in January, Minnesota officially added its transfer portal class from the December window. The Gophers added 14 players to their roster via the portal, including several top-300 transfers: wide receiver Malachi Coleman, wide receiver Javon Tracy, running back A.J. Turner, and wide receiver Logan Loya. The 14-man class should help ensure that the Gophers are once again a highly competitive program in 2025, as P.J. Fleck's program will eye its fourth season with eight more wins since 2021.

The full Gophers transfer portal class includes WR Malachi Coleman, WR Javon Tracy, RB A.J. Turner, WR Logan Loya, QB Zach Pyron, OL Marcellus Marshall, DL Steven Curtis, LB Jeff Roberson, DL Rushawn Lawrence, RB Cameron Davis, OL Kahlee Tafai, K Brady Denaburg, TE Drew Biber, and CB Jaylen Bowden.

We already mentioned the departure of Corey Hetherman above but there were other staff changes for the Gophers in January.

The biggest was Minnesota officially promoting safeties coach Danny Collins as defensive coordinator. They also promoted former Gopher linebacker Mariano Sori-Marino to linebackers coach after being a defensive analyst in 2023 and the nickels/assistant linebackers coach in 2024.

Dennis Dottin-Carter was promoted to rush-ends coach after working as an analyst the last two seasons while former Purdue defensive coordinator Kevin Kane will be the new Nickles/Outside Linebackers Coach.

Notably, Dottin-Carter is the frontrunner to be the next defensive line coach as Winston DeLattiboudere is expected to take the defensive line coaching job with the Arizona Cardinals.

Keegan O'Hara has been named the program's assistant quarterbacks coach. He previously worked with the quarterbacks as one of the program's offensive analysts since 2023. Finally, Zack Lucas the former director of football operations at UCF will now be the director of football operations for the Gophers.

Multiple Golden Gophers impressed in post-season all-star practices and games at the end of the month. Max Brosmer had a fantastic week in Dallas at the Shrine Bowl and was one of the top performances through practices, Brosmerd didn't boost his stock into an early day three selection but his performance in Dallas helped solidify him as a strong candidate to be an sixth or seventh-round draft pick.

At the Senior Bowl, the Gophers had a trio of players offensive tackle Aireontae Ersery, defensive end Jah Joyner, and defensive lineman Danny Striggow. Ersery was dominant as he looked to work his way into becoming a more solidified first-round candidate while Jah Joyner flashed the potential that will leave NFL general managers intrigued. Finally, Dann Striggow showed up late in the week after getting a phone call on Wednesday night and for being so late in the process had some quality reps. Notably, Striggow took reps inside at the Senior Bowl.

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

- Talk about it INSIDE GOPHER NATION.

- Follow us on Twitter: @MinnesotaRivals, @RivalsDylanCC

- SUBSCRIBE to Gophers Nation