INDIANAPOLIS – P.J. Fleck has a question for you.
“Have you ever been to the Kentucky Derby?” he said.
Nope.
“Have you ever ridden a horse in the Kentucky Derby?” he said.
Nope.
“I haven't either,” said the Minnesota head coach.
Stick with him. He’s getting to the point.
And the point, in this case, is about the Golden Gophers’ season opener with Ohio State under the lights on Sept. 2.
“But I can imagine right before you get into the chute and they open that gate, that anticipation that you feel,” Fleck said. “And then when they open the gate, you go. The anticipation playing a top-five team to open the season at Huntington Bank Stadium with the crowd being back first the time, a sellout crowd, our third straight, with a top-five opponent, it's awesome. But it's still a football game. Our players are taught to be humble enough to know that anybody can beat you if you're not at your best but confident enough to know that you can beat anybody if you are at your best. They're trained that way. And it's just like the Derby – there are so many horses, and on any given day, one can beat the other.”
Fleck called the awaiting challenge of facing the Big Ten preseason favorite an “enormous challenge.”
“They're well-coached, they're a tremendous football team, incredible tradition,” Fleck said. “I've worked there, I know it. But again, we have to focus on us. We can't focus on them. We have to be the best team we can possibly be September 2, and that's what we're going to work toward.”
Fleck’s horses in the race – his players, in this case – largely echoed his comments during Thursday’s Big Ten Media Day.
Returning conference running back of the year Mohamed Ibrahim, second-team all-conference pick Tanner Morgan and popular breakout candidate defensive lineman Boye Mafe all spoke about the Buckeyes with reverence, respect and, well, excitement. They don’t need a remainder, after all, that Minnesota has beaten Ohio State once in the past 39 years. For them, there’s nothing better than the possibility of opening their season by pulling the biggest upset in many years.
That said, none of them made it sound for a second as if they’re underestimating the task at hand.
“I mean, they're talented,” Mafe said. “You can't say that enough. They produce guys. They continuously do that.”
“Those guys are a great representation of what the Big Ten can be,” Ibrahim said. “They represent us every year in the playoffs. It's very important to understand that they're going to be at their best. So we need to be at our best.”
“They don't rebuild,” Morgan said. “They reload.”
Morgan can make that statement with confidence because, more than most on his Minnesota roster, he has seen first-hand the might of Ohio State.
The fifth-year quarterback grew up in Union, Kentucky, a town of a little more than 5,000 people that’s just a 20-minute drive from Cincinnati. Naturally, Buckeye fans were plentiful, including in the halls of Ryle High School. And, of course, down a hallway in his house. His brother, he says, was a big-time Troy Smith fan as a kid. He can recall them attending a few Ohio State games in the Shoe, and he remembers “what they meant to me.”
In a month and a half, it won’t be the quarterback in scarlet and gray that the Morgan family is most interested in. They’ll all be rooting for the Golden Gopher redshirt senior signal-caller to pull off a massive upset.
“Obviously Ohio State is one of the best teams in college football,” Morgan said. “They make the College Football Playoff it seems like every year. They're always getting to the Big Ten championship. They always reload. They're incredibly well-coached. It's going to be a big challenge for us, and we're excited for that opportunity, for that challenge.”
He added: “You cherish the opportunity to play the best of the best, and Ohio State is certainly that.”
