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Early look at Minnesota

Auburn is facing a Big Ten opponent on New Year's Day for the second straight bowl season, but P.J. Fleck's Golden Gophers are no Purdue.

In Fleck's third season, Minnesota has double-digit wins for the sixth time in the program's 128-year history. It won't get to its 14 and 13 wins from the glory years of its 1903 and 1904 seasons, but a victory over the Tigers in the Outback Bowl will get Minnesota its most wins since.

Fleck's bunch is one of the more talented squads in their conference, and they were in the Playoff conversation late in the year and nearly made the Big Ten title game because of it.

Here are the five most important things to know about Auburn's 2019 (2020?) bowl adversary with 22 days until kickoff.

Tanner Morgan (2), Rashod Bateman (13) and Tyler Johnson (6) were named All-Big Ten this season.
Tanner Morgan (2), Rashod Bateman (13) and Tyler Johnson (6) were named All-Big Ten this season. (Cary Edmondson / USA TODAY Sports)
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QUARTERBACK, RECEIVER PLAY IS NO JOKE

Statistically, Tanner Morgan is having the single best passing season in program history. The redshirt sophomore from Kentucky's 28 touchdowns and 2,975 yards through the air are the most ever by a Minnesota quarterback in a season, and he's still got a game to go.

Another impressive note for Morgan: he's this year's second team All-Big Ten quarterback behind Ohio State's Justin Fields, who is headed to New York this weekend as a Heisman Trophy finalist.

It doesn't hurt that Morgan has, as voted on by Big Ten coaches and media, the two best pass-catchers in the conference. Wideouts Rashod Bateman and Tyler Johnson were the All-Big Ten first team receivers last week.

They both have 11 touchdowns on the season and are both in the top-20 nationally in receiving yards per game, making the Gophers the only team in the country besides LSU (Ja'Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson) to have two receivers averaging 90 yards or more per game.

RODNEY ROUND THE STAT SHEET

Senior tailback Rodney Smith is the driving force that makes Minnesota's offense balanced. A 1,000-yard back this season with eight rushing scores, Smith is the program's all-time leader in all-purpose yards.

Morgan is dangerously effective finding Bateman and Johnson downfield in the play-action game downfield, so the Gophers will look to establish Smith, a second team All-Big Ten nod, early to open that up.

But that could be a challenge, considering Auburn's muscle up front, combined with the fact that Minnesota is averaging 2.6 yards per carry against ranked opponents this year. If the Gophers are to score enough on Auburn's defense, it might need to be Morgan through the air.

STINGY SECONDARY

Minnesota was middle-of-the-pack stopping the run this season, ranking seventh in the Big Ten in allowing 128 yards per game and 17 rushing scores on the season. But in terms of defensive-back play, teams needed tread lightly in attacking in the passing game.

Led by safety Antoine Winfield Jr., Minnesota owns the No. 11 passing defense in all of college football and is one of six secondaries in the nation with more interceptions than touchdowns allowed.

Winfield, who's also the team's leading tackler, is the ball-hawk that makes everything go on the back end. A first team All-Big Ten safety who was named the conference's defensive back of the year, Winfield has seven interceptions — four more than the player with the second-most in the Big Ten — on 21 targets. Repeated: Winfield picked off one-third of the passes thrown his way this season.

In a win over Penn State, Winfield (11) turned in one of the top-graded performances by a defensive back in recent Big Ten history with two interceptions, including a pick-six, and two third-down stops and a fourth-down solo stop. Penn State coach James Franklin called Winfield his college football "man crush."
In a win over Penn State, Winfield (11) turned in one of the top-graded performances by a defensive back in recent Big Ten history with two interceptions, including a pick-six, and two third-down stops and a fourth-down solo stop. Penn State coach James Franklin called Winfield his college football "man crush." (Jesse Johnson / USA TODAY Sports)

BO NIX'S EXPERIENCE 

Auburn true freshman Bo Nix will be one of the more experienced quarterbacks Minnesota's defense has faced all season.

The Gophers played two freshmen quarterbacks, three first-year starters, six backups and just one multi-year starter in Iowa's Nate Stanley.

Nix now has 12 starts under his belt, the most of any opposing QB against Fleck and company this year besides Stanley. He'll still need the run game to produce behind him and his receivers to put in work against that talented Gophers secondary, though.

MONSTERS VS. MONSTERS IN THE TRENCHES

Minnesota's starting offensive line, littered with late-team and honorably mentioned all-conference players, goes, from left to right: Sam Schlueter, 6-foot-6, 325 pounds; Blaise Andries, 6-foot-6, 325 pounds; Conner Olson, 6-foot-5, 305 pounds; Curtis Dunlap Jr., 6-foot-5, 345 pounds; Daniel Faalele, 6-foot-9, 400 pounds.

Even for one of the more feared fronts in the nation, getting past those blocks will be a challenge for Auburn, especially if Derrick Brown and/or Marlon Davidson elect to sit out the bowl in preparation for the NFL draft.

However, Minnesota still allowed 30 sacks and 69 negative plays this season, tying for only the 98th and 61st-best marks in the country, respectively.

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