By Karrington Kincaid Posted on

Washington Huskies vs Minnesota: Preview, History and Key Matchups

The (2-1) Minnesota Golden Gophers are traveling west to take on the (3-0) Washington Huskies in their first matchup in nearly 50 years. After their home loss to Mississippi State two weeks ago, the Gophers bounced back last week with a 41-7 win over the Akron Zips.

The Huskies have had discipline issues in their first 3 games. Those issues mostly on defense have not stopped them from winning . The Dawgs played their first complete game of the season in last weeks 48-16 win over Eastern Washington.

All-Time Matches

The all-time matchup with the Gophers has not favored the Huskies. Washington is 7-10 against Minnesota. The first match between the two schools was on September 26th, 1936, and was a low-scoring affair, with the Huskies falling to the Gophers 14-7. It took the Huskies 14 years to get their first win against Minnesota which came on September 30th of 1950. With nearly 50,000 fans in attendance, the Huskies gave the home crowd its money’s worth and defeated the Gophers 28-13.

Over the past 10 games, the Huskies have beaten the Gophers 7-3. In in terms of relevancy this doesn’t mean a lot since their most recent matchup was in 1977 which ended in a 19-17 loss for the Huskies.

Limiting Drake Lindsey

Minnesota Quarterback Drake Lindsey has continued to play extremely well heading into his junior year. Through the first 3 games of the season, he’s completed 67-103 passes for 747 yards. He’s thrown for 4 touchdowns along with an interception. He’s played his most impressive game of the season against Akron last weekend, going 17-for-311 for 204 yards and 3 touchdowns.

The Huskies are back in the polls, ranked 23rd after being knocked out a couple weeks ago. This being due to the outstanding defense they’ve played. They are currently plus 6 in turnovers with 7 takeaways and one turnover. These numbers have helped them maintain leads, since the margin for error in protecting the football is low. They will need to continue this trend as they face the dynamic Minnesota quarterback Saturday night.

Capitalizing on eliminating penalties

The 2026 Washington Huskies have established themselves as a decent defensive unit. Unsportsmanlike and personal fouls have kept the Huskies from being a dominant defensive team. A void in leadership has contributed to the mistakes that have been made. In last week’s win over Eastern Washington, the Huskies had two defensive players, Jacob Lane adn Xe’ree Alexander, who were both ejected from the game. Head coach Jedd Fisch reiretared his message to the team.

“Our goal is to not give up first downs through penalties,” said Fisch. “I’m not really concerned about the bang-bang plays, that sometimes happens in the course of a game. But the unsportsmanlike conduct penalties or we’ve had two targeting penalties in two games… those are the ones that we have to stop doing.”

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