Some Gophers football fans chanted “Who hates Iowa?” before the season opener against North Carolina on Aug. 29, showing their attention is never far from their bitter rival.

By the time the Floyd of Rosedale game arrived three weeks later, the majority of fans wore maroon for the game against the Hawkeyes at Huntington Bank Stadium. But many of those same fans had left the building after Iowa scored 24 unanswered points in a 31-14 win.

Hawkeyes fans converged on the northwest corner of the stadium for when the visiting players lifted the bronzed pig trophy in that end zone. Then Iowa fans were seen in videos chanting “I-O-W-A!” as they exited Minnesota’s stadium.

Since 2011, the Gophers are 1-7 against Iowa in Minneapolis.

Two bad halves

The Gophers (2-2) had 14-7 halftime leads against both Iowa and North Carolina, but were outscored 36-3 combined in those second halves to suffer two startling defeats.

“I think we have had two bad halves of football in four games, in terms of performance,” head coach P.J. Fleck said Monday. “When you go back and look and evaluate yourself constantly and go back and reflect as a head football coach, my job is to be able to get our team to play their absolute best for 60 minutes. Haven’t been able to do that in two of the games, in my opinion. That 100 percent falls on me.”

Missed tackles galore

Defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman had the Gophers down for 22 missed tackles against North Carolina. Pro Football Focus had the U down for 13 missed tackles against Iowa.

“It became a tackling issue in the second half,” Fleck said. “We’d miss one tackle or we would hesitate and not shoot our gun. We wouldn’t shoot tackle and breakdown. You do that against that (running back Kaleb Johnson). You can coach that, but you’ve got to go apply it. We did it in the first half. We didn’t do it in the second half. It wasn’t like nobody was there. We had people where they needed to be. We just didn’t make the play.”

Veteran safety Darius Green, who is expected to be a leader in the back end, had the lowest run grade and two missed tackles versus Iowa, per PFF. He has been working his way back from an offseason injury and missed the first two games of the season.

With safety Aidan Gousby and cornerback Justin Walley both out injured, Green’s errors were more glaring Saturday.

Briefly

Against No. 12 Michigan, the Gophers will face a defending national champion for the 10th time on Saturday. The U is 0-9 in the previous matchups. Minnesota has lost four straight to the Wolverines with the Little Brown Jug on the line, including a 52-10 blowout in Minnesota last October. … The Gophers’ game against No. 13 USC will be at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 5 and will air on Big Ten Network, the conference announced Monday.

Related Articles

P.J. Fleck’s plea: ‘Don’t give up on this team’ after Gophers’ loss to Iowa

Gophers overrun in 31-14 loss to Iowa in rivalry game

Gophers secondary down two key players for Iowa game

Gophers football: ‘Such a fulfilling win’ over Iowa last season

Gophers football: Quarterback Max Brosmer has link to Iowa