Northwestern-Minnesota preview: Opponent Q&A with Gopher Illustrated

The newly-ranked Wildcats head to Minneapolis, where they haven’t won since 2012, on Saturday. We talked to Ryan Burns of Gopher Illustrated to get the low-down on the Golden Gophers.

InsideNU: Minnesota fired its defensive coordinator before the Purdue game and it seemed to make a huge difference. What did you notice about the Golden Gopher defense on Saturday?

Ryan Burns: They played as fast as we’ve seen in Big Ten play. Minnesota’s got talent in their linebacking crew with Blake Cashman, Thomas Barber and Kamal Martin, but they’d been playing slow and missing assignments under former defensive coordinator and linebacker coach Robb Smith. Joe Rossi came in and assumed both LB/DC…