Minnesota used their typical ground-and-pound running attack to pick apart a Northwestern team that was outmatched on Saturday inside Huntington Bank Stadium.
The Gophers secured an easy 31-3 win over the Wildcats behind the efforts of Mohamed Ibrahim, who rushed for 178 yards on 36 carries and scored three touchdowns.
Tanner Morgan was unable to go on Saturday after sustaining an "upper body" injury in last week's game against Nebraska. Redshirt freshman Athan Kaliakmanis got the start at quarterback for the Gophers, going 7-of-13 passing for 64 yards while rushing for 28 yards on four carries.
Out of Minnesota's 366 total yards of offense, 302 of those came on the ground as Trey Potts (63 yards) and freshman Zach Evans (29 yards) also contributed to the running game.
Evans scored his first collegiate touchdown on a 6-yard run with 4:24 remaining in the fourth quarter to put Minnesota up 31-3, the final score.
Defensively, Minnesota held Northwestern to just 278 total yards of offense with linebacker Cody Lindenberg leading the team with six tackles.
Defensive back Terrell Smith had 1.5 tackles for loss while Tyler Nubin and Ryan Sapp had an interception a piece.
With the win, Minnesota improves to 7-3 overall, 4-3 in Big Ten play. With the loss, Northwestern drops to 1-9 on the season, 1-6 in conference play.
Notes:
- Minnesota controlled time of possession, 40:22 to 19:38
- The Gophers were 6-of-13 on third down while Northwestern was just 3-of-12 on third down and 0-for-3 on fourth down.
- Northwestern had just 72 yards rushing on the day.
- Minnesota averaged 5.2 yards per rush.
- Daniel Jackson led the Gophers in receiving with 3 catches for 34 yards.
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