The Gophers’ running game averaged less than three yards per carry across the opening two games this season. That continued with 2.7 yards per rush on 13 carries into the second half against Nevada on Saturday.

Then tailback Darius Taylor burst out on a rollicking 80-yard touchdown run to put the final points on a 27-0 win at Huntington Bank Stadium. Minnesota continued to get more consistent chunks of yardage on the ground after Taylor’s explosive play and finished the final nonconference game with 195 yards on 32 carries (6.1 per rush).

“Those are body blows, body blows, body blows, body blows and boom! There is a knockout punch,” head coach P.J. Fleck said postgame.

The Gophers (2-1) will face a heavyweight rush defense when Iowa (2-1) comes to Minneapolis for a primetime edition of the battle for Floyd of Rosedale on Saturday night. The Hawkeyes are sixth in the nation, allowing 2.06 yards per carry this season.

Fleck has pointed out that nonconference opponents have been putting extra defenders in the box to stop the U’s run game, which has been making it more difficult to get more yardage on a consistent basis.

“I don’t think it’s ever as bad as you think or as good as you think. … There are nine guys down in the box,” Fleck said Monday about Nevada. “I think people in the run game sometimes think every time you run the ball you should get 12 yards. Not in today’s day and age. Not all the time.

“It’s being willing to stick with the run game over and over and over. That allows a lot of things to happen in the pass game.”

With quarterback Max Brosmer’s ability to orchestrate a short and quick-hitting passing game, Minnesota has been able to establish the pass and then run it. “Throw to run,” Fleck has repeated this season.

Minnesota has run the ball on 56 percent of total plays this season, down 6 percent from last year.

When it comes to the offensive line, Fleck has said this year’s team reminds him of the 2019 season, when they used a larger variety of linemen, especially early on in the year. This season, the Gophers have used three different starting combinations at right guard and right tackle through three games.

“They have to be consistent,” Fleck said about needs from the O-line going into Iowa. “They have to do a great job of communicating. They have to play hard-nosed football. They do. It’s not that they don’t; they do. They play extremely hard as we continue to go through this and mold it together. We just have to continue to have the consistency there that we know the guys can have.”

Against North Carolina, Quinn Carroll started at right guard and Martes Lewis at right tackle. For Rhode Island, they flipped to Lewis at guard, Carroll at tackle, but Ashton Beers replaced Lewis midway through the game. For Nevada, it was Beers at guard, Carroll at tackle.

The other three first-team lineman have remained constant: left tackle Aireontae Ersery, left guard Tyler Cooper and center Greg Johnson.

“I thought the leadership has gotten tangibly and consistently growing in that group: Quinn and ‘Tae, Coop and Greg — everybody on that O-line — they did an amazing job staying together,” Brosmer said. “They know that ultimately they want to put a perfect product on the field, but everyone knows that being perfect isn’t obtainable. We want to get close to perfect.”

Minnesota Gophers quarterback Max Brosmer (16) passes the ball against the Nevada Wolf Pack in the first quarter of an NCAA football game at Huntington Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on Saturday, Sept., 14, 2024. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

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