Neal: Gophers’ unimpressive victory was survival rather than a bounceback

Gophers coach P.J. Fleck stepped to the podium following their 23-20 overtime victory over Michigan State on Saturday and was blunt.

“Where do we want to start?” he asked. “We won the game. The guys found a way.”

Let me be equally blunt.

It was a rather unimpressive victory against an unimpressive Michigan State team.

Sure, you take wins any way you can get them. If Fleck gets to bodysurf over his players in the locker room at the end of the day, that day was a success. And the Gophers, after blowing a 10-point lead in the first half, rallied to tie the score and force overtime before winning on Drake Lindsey’s 3-yard touchdown run.

Gophers fans left Huntington Bank Stadium on Saturday happy. Or perhaps relieved.

But the Gophers didn’t exactly bounce back emphatically from their drubbing in Iowa City last week, where Floyd of Rosedale renewed his lease for another year.

The Spartans returned to East Lansing feeling frustrated but knowing that they could have won the game if their kicker, Martin Connington, hadn’t missed a 24-yard field goal with less than six minutes left in regulation. Or if they could have cut down on their 10 penalties — including the pass interference call in overtime that gave the Gophers first-and-goal at the 4.

The Gophers left some points on the field as well, particularly late in the first half when Brady Denaburg missed a 33-yard field goal. Still, they went into halftime leading 10-0. The defense had already sacked Alessio Milivojevic six times. The game was looking like a mismatch.

They came out in the third quarter and were thoroughly outplayed for most of the second half.

Michigan State made adjustments, running the ball more to keep pressure off their quarterback. Milivojevic, when he did throw, got the ball out of his hand quickly. The game turned.

Offensively, the Gophers accumulated all of 24 yards from the start of the third quarter to 5:23 remaining in the fourth. Their only two possessions of the third quarter went three-and-outs.

Milivojevic completed 71% of his passes. He made the Gophers pay for breakdowns in the secondary on a 71-yard TD to Rodney Bullard Jr. in the third quarter and a 48-yard hookup to Nick Marsh that got the Spartans to the Gophers 4. The Gophers finally stepped up and kept Michigan State out of the end zone there, and they were rewarded with the missed chip-shot field goal.

The lack of tackling was really on display during Elijah Tau-Tolliver’s 85-yard run to the Gophers 3. Things to work on during the bye week.

“All this stuff is correctable,” Fleck said. “That’s what I love about it. So many certain things we can get better at.

“The goal was to get to 1-0 [for the week]. We’ll handle how we got to 1-0 later.”

There will be many ways Fleck can express his love for coaching over the next several practices.

That’s what is troubling here. The Gophers didn’t get back on track Saturday, they survived. They escaped against a 3-6 team that is winless in the conference. They can’t travel with this level of play to Oregon in two weeks.

I’ll tip my cap to the Gophers, now 6-3 overall and 4-2 in the Very Big Ten. They avoided losing on consecutive weekends. As hard as Saturday’s game was, they were able to celebrate. And Lindsey, the redshirt freshman, stepped up in the fourth quarter by leading the Gophers on a 65-yard drive to tie the score with 29 seconds remaining.

Then the Gophers dialed up a naked bootleg with the ball at the 3, and told Lindsey to keep the ball. He did, and scored the winning touchdown in overtime on a play that survived an officials’ review.

“If you happened to leave,” Fleck said, “you missed a heck of a finish.”

That’s one takeaway from Saturday. Lindsey coming through in a big moment to keep his team away from an embarrassing loss.