Northwestern: Fitzgerald will need to find stability at quarterback for Northwestern to compete the rest of the way. Minnesota: With an impressive win against Northwestern, Minnesota sits alone at the top of the Big Ten West standings despite losing its two top running backs. Marty threw a late, 17-yard touchdown pass to Berkeley Holman. Morgan had an 18-yard touchdown run early in the fourth quarter. Trailing 20-7 late in the first half, Northwestern got a key defensive stop when Coco Azema tipped a Morgan pass and Brandon Joseph made a diving catch in the end zone for the interception. The Gophers answered on their next possession with Irving scoring from the 3. Marty came in during an 11-play 75-yard drive and capped it with a 6-yard touchdown pass to Evan Hull, who accounted for 50 yards of total offense on the drive. Minnesota held Northwestern to a three-and-out and capitalized with another field goal from Trickett for a 13-0 first-quarter lead.

On the next play from scrimmage, Hilinski completed a pass to Malik Washington, who was stripped by Mariano Sori-Marin and Walley picked up the loose ball and scored. The Gophers never trailed after opening the game with a 13-play, 67-yard drive capped by a 26-yard field goal by Matthew Trickett. So who is going to be our quarterback for next week? We will work through that.” 'I thought he gave us a spark and that was encouraging. “We have to help him (Marty) a little bit more, we had more drops in the second half than we had in a long time and those are opportunities for first downs and being able to sustain drives,' Fitzgerald said. Andrew Marty finished 10 of 16 for the Wildcats (3-5, 1-4) and threw a pair of touchdown passes.įitzgerald would not name a starter going forward.

Again, those are the cards we're dealt,” Fleck said.īefore it could get its offense untracked Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald pulled starter Ryan Hilinski. “Bryce went down today, Ky was done for a while and we were down to Bucko (Irving) and we had Derik (LeCaptain) on deck. LeCaptain had a 24-yard run for a touchdown in the fourth quarter. The Gophers' depth chart has taken so much of a hit that Fleck experimented with linebacker Derik LeCaptain at running back. Thomas was banged up early in the game but returned. I don't think we're catching anyone off guard by that,” Minnesota coach P.J. “Everybody knows we're going to run the football.

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