Three issues plaguing Gophers football team at midpoint

Half of the Gophers football season is in the books, and while the results can be evenly split, the sequence of events has been turbulent. A blowout loss to Mississippi State in mid-September was followed by two Big Ten wins — at Washington and against Michigan at Huntington Bank Stadium, the program s first home win against the Wolverines since 1977. Those two impressive victories were followed by a startlingly lopsided loss at Purdue last weekend. Clear highs and glaring lows, while wins over lower-level Akron and Eastern Illinois are less valuable chapters across the opening six weeks and the bye week. I ve learned a lot about this football team; we have six games of data, head coach P.J. Fleck said after the 41-13 loss to the Boilermakers in West Lafayette, Ind. This team had something like this happen against Mississippi State, and boy, I d say they responded pretty well. Life is not about it continuing to go up; it s not always going to happen like that. This t