Gophers need one win to qualify for bowl, but five could be enough

It's there for the taking. With one more win, the Gophers will reach six victories and become eligible for a bowl game. Getting there will be a challenge, though, because they finish with a trip to No. 25 Northwestern on Saturday and the home finale against No. 8 Wisconsin on Nov. 25.

But with their 54-21 romp over Nebraska on Saturday, the Gophers (5-5, 2-5 Big Ten) put themselves within striking distance of finishing at least .500 in coach P.J. Fleck's first year in Minneapolis. A bowl game would be a reward for that, but it's not something on which the team is focusing.

"We know we have to take it one game at a time and control what we can control,'' Gophers running back Rodney Smith said after his 279 all-purpose yards, including a game-opening, 100-yard kickoff return for a touchdown, helped slay the Cornhuskers. "… We know that Northwestern is a good football team, and we'll get their best shot."

Added safety Jacob Huff, "If we win the next game and the game after that, we'll just accept what's handed to us."

The preferred way for teams to make a bowl is to get at least six wins, but a 5-7 record will get a team in if there are not enough six-win teams to fill the 78 bowl spots and they have the highest multiyear Academic Progress Rate (APR). That's how the Gophers went to the Quick Lane Bowl in 2015 despite a 5-7 record. Currently, there are 59 bowl-eligible teams, with the Gophers among 21 teams with five wins.

Minnesota's multiyear APR is 992, tied with Duke and Vanderbilt, who are both 4-6. If all three finish 5-7 and there are bowl openings, the tiebreaker of single-year APR would rank Vanderbilt first, Duke second and the Gophers third.

Jerry Palm, a CBSSports.com college football analyst who specializes in bowl projections, projects the Gophers to finish 5-7 and go to the Foster Farms Bowl to play Stanford on Dec. 27 in Santa Clara, Calif. That's a change from last week, when he had Minnesota outside, looking in. He now expects two openings for 5-7 teams and has the Gophers and Indiana (4-6 with a 982 APR) filling them, with the Hoosiers going to the Quick Lane Bowl in Detroit.

"Vandy [0-6 in the SEC] is pretty unlikely at this point,'' Palm said. "Duke, with the loss yesterday [to Army], really hurt itself in getting to five wins.''

Since Indiana played in the Foster Farms Bowl last year and the Gophers were in the Quick Lane in 2015, Palm said projecting Minnesota to Santa Clara and the Hoosiers to Detroit was an easy call. "Although I suppose it's possible one of them can end up in the Heart of Dallas Bowl [Dec. 26] and they keep one of those two [Foster Farms or Quick Lane] open for someone else,'' Palm added.

Another possibility for the Gophers should they be included in the bowl field is the Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium on Dec. 27. Palm has Michigan projected to that bowl, but if the Big Ten sends three teams to New Year's Six bowls (the Rose and Sugar bowls as semifinals, plus the Cotton, Fiesta, Orange and Peach), that could open up New York for Minnesota. "If Ohio State wins out, wins the league and hands Wisconsin its only loss, you could see Wisconsin and Penn State also getting in [the New Year's Six],'' said Palm, who currently has Wisconsin in the Sugar and Penn State in the Cotton.

The Gophers, of course, can make any 5-7 scenario disappear by just winning one more game.