Gophers score early, often in 66-0 rout of overmatched Northwestern State

Six seconds into Saturday’s Gophers football game against Northwestern (La.) State, John Nestor emphatically introduced himself to the Minnesota faithful. By the end of the first quarter, Matt Kingsbury was offering a rousing “hello,” too.

Together, Nestor, a sixth-year senior cornerback and transfer from Iowa, and Kingsbury, a third-year sophomore linebacker, scored defensive touchdowns that served as bookends for a 35-point first quarter that had the Gophers rolling to a 66-0 beatdown of the Demons, a downtrodden FCS program.

The game was called with 6 minutes, 15 seconds left in the fourth quarter in front of an announced crowd of 42,447 at Huntington Bank Stadium because of lightning in the area. Both head coaches mutually agreed to end the game.

Nestor, on the first play from scrimmage, jumped a route, intercepted a pass by Abrams Johnston and returned it 29 yards for a score before people had taken their seats. With only 27 seconds left in the quarter, Kingsbury pounced on a fumble forced by Maverick Baranowski and sprinted 29 yards for a scoop-and-score, one of his two fumble recoveries on the day.

“All of us as a defense throughout the whole game really set the tone and kept raising our standard,” said Nestor, who also had a second-quarter interception that set up a touchdown. “I’d say it was a good start.”

Gophers coach P.J. Fleck didn’t want to disrespect Northwestern State, which last week ended a 20-game losing streak that dated to 2022, but he wanted his team to focus on producing a dominant showing as it prepares for next week’s game at California and the nine Big Ten contests to follow. The goals were to sharpen the first-teamers as much as possible, get reserves plenty of playing time and avoid injuries.

“Our team did a really good job of handling business. We said that it really didn’t matter about our opponent,” Fleck said. “… We knew it was about us this afternoon."

Junior running back Darius Taylor, the team’s leading rusher, left in the first quarter after what appeared to be a right leg injury. On the play before A.J. Turner’s 1-yard TD run made it 14-0, Taylor swept 17 yards to the Demons’ 1-yard line before awkwardly landing out of bounds and grabbing the back of his right leg. He was tended to by trainers, and Fleck sprinted across the field to check on him. Taylor was examined in the injury tent and returned to the sideline, but he did not play again, which was expected given the score of the game and his importance to the team.

Fleck gave an optimistic assessment of Taylor’s health. “It doesn’t seem too bad, which is really good,” he said. “So, we got a really good, positive diagnosis on that. We’ll see how the week goes, as he goes through it. But we weren’t going to put him back in the game, that’s for sure.”

Fleck also said defensive tackle Jalen Logan-Redding, who left the game because of a knee injury in the second quarter, might have been able to return had he been needed.

While Nestor, Kingsbury and defensive end Anthony Smith (1½ sacks) were holding the Demons (1-1) to minus-9 total yards in the first half and 42 for the game, the Gophers offense racked up 484 yards, saw seven players score touchdowns and averaged 7.7 yards per play.

BOXSCORE: Gophers 66, Northwestern State 0

“He had complete command of the game plan,” Fleck said of Lindsey, who connected with receiver Javon Tracy for a 25-yard TD pass in the second quarter. “He was really, really sharp.”

With Taylor missing most of the game, the Gophers spread around the carries. Grant Washington rushed 20 times for 126 yards, while fellow redshirt freshman Fame Ijeboi carried seven times for 51 yards.

“I brought the offense up after the first quarter and told them, ‘We’ve got to keep the foot on the pedal,’ ” Lindsey said. “There’s games like that are going to happen sometimes, and that’s when you got to take advantage of it.”

A total of 76 Gophers played, and Fleck believed that was important, even against a team that hasn’t had a winning season since 2008.

“To get better at football, you’ve got to play football,” he said. “This team needs to keep playing football.”

For Nestor and his teammates, the opponent didn’t matter. They just wanted to show what they could do.