Gophers football general manager Gerrit Chernoff stood at the southwest gate of Ross-Ade Stadium on Saturday with a sense of urgency.

After Minnesota players had grabbed their red-boxed dinners postgame and headed to the coach busses, staffers were quickly packing the tail ends of the gear for the trip home to Minneapolis.

With Chernoff saying and gesturing “let’s go,” everyone with the Gophers was trying to get out of Dodge, err, West Lafayette, Ind., as soon as possible after a shocking 49-30 loss to Purdue.

The problem: Despite how quickly the Gophers left Purdue on Saturday night, the loss to the Boilermakers will linger much longer.

Minnesota has effectively squandered yet another chance to win the Big Ten West division this season, and unlike falling short in previous years, Minnesota will likely do so by multiple games this fall.

The Gophers (5-5, 3-4 Big Ten) also added another category of loss to their expanding catalog: getting blown out by an opponent which spent most of the season struggling to beat anybody. Purdue’s two previous wins were against Virginia Tech and Illinois.

“They played as well as I’ve seen them play on film,” Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck said. “Unfortunately it was against us (Saturday) and we were a piece of that. We were a reason for that as well.”

The swinging saloon door aspect of the Gophers’ defense was the most-jarring aspect of the loss. Purdue’s 604 total yards was the most Minnesota has allowed since Maryland racked up 675 during the pandemic-altered season in 2020.

The U’s run fits lacked all game, allowing Purdue tailbacks to run wild. And after one long touchdown pass, safeties Tyler Nubin and Darius Green turned to each other futilely.

The Gophers will have to pick up the pieces quickly with a road trip to No. 1 Ohio State coming Saturday. The Buckeyes (10-0, 7-0) opened as a 27.5-point favorite for the 3 p.m. CT kickoff at Ohio Stadium.

“I don’t worry about our team’s confidence being shattered,” Fleck said Saturday. “I worry about just pouring into them so they can continue to keep confidence.”

The Gophers weren’t competitive against another top-tier opponent in a 52-10 loss to No. 3 Michigan in early October, while Ohio State walked past Purdue 41-7 earlier this season.

When Minnesota gave up a 21-point lead to Northwestern in a 37-34 overtime loss in September, Fleck decided to not put his players through the horrors of reviewing the film. He said they needed time to grieve. That tactic wasn’t carried over after the Michigan thumping.

“We’ll go back to work (Sunday),” Fleck said from West Lafayette, Ind. “And then we’ll find those reasons, and we’ll work on those reasons all week long. Then we’ll play the No. 1 team in the country. What a great opportunity.”

The grander opportunity of winning the Big Ten West was right in front of the Gophers after beating then-No. 24 Iowa on Oct. 21. After that rivalry win in Iowa City, Chernoff was in no rush.

The U bussed to Iowa for that game; instead of flying out of Indiana on Saturday. Air travel always speeds up postgame activities. But after Fleck and players conducted news conferences at Kinnick Stadium three weeks ago, Chernoff took a seat at that same table, basking in the victory.

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