Going into the 2020 season, I had my suspicions that Minnesota might struggle to match their 2019 success. It might have been the Gophers’ stumbles in their non-conference games, or the fact that they never beat anyone last season who had a returning starter. It might also have had to do with the fact that the Gophers only had four returning starters on defense.
But Minnesota throttled Nebraska and Auburn, so I pretty much had to accept “scoreboard” as a reason that boat rowing was now a very real factor in the Big Ten’s West division. But all of that started to unravel when the Big Ten’s season began in October.