Commentary: Gophers matchup counts big for Lovie Smith and Illini program

Get ready for this hot take: Every adult can count.

Not warm enough? Sorry, but I'll try harder.

Illinois fans, coaches, players, and athletic department personnel are included in whatever temperature you deem the previous take.

At 2-2, the number of realistic opportunities for this Illini team to get to count its way to the magical bowl-eligible mark of six wins continues to dwindle. A loss Saturday in Minnesota makes a postseason dream seem like nothing more than just that. Minnesota may soon need two hands to count its win total as the Gophers (4-0, 1-0 in Big Ten) look for its first 5-0 start since 2004. So yeah, there’s a lot on the line for both squads, especially Lovie Smith’s bunch, as the Illini (2-2, 0-1) faces its Big Ten road opener.

However, don’t just immediately go to the standings and count the wins and losses to find the importance of Saturday’s game.

Go to the rosters - specifically Minnesota’s roster.

The Gophers have nine players who list their hometown in the state of Illinois and six more players who resided in what Illini coaches would say is their recruiting territory. Minnesota coach P.J. Fleck, a Sugar Grove, Ill., native who played at Northern Illinois, was an obvious Illini head coaching candidate the year before his 2017 Western Michigan team went to a New Year’s Six bowl. It’s easy for Illini fans to point at a Fleck-Smith matchup as a barometer to where their program is and where they could be.

Go to the recruiting classes.

The Gophers 2020 recruiting class currently includes three-star athlete Itayvion Brown from St. Louis and a foothold at IMG Academy in Florida where it’s obvious every coach would like to be connected (included Smith and the Illini).

Illini fans enjoyed counting the number of points, yards and big plays it connected on last year in Champaign in a 55-31 win over the Gophers. It was such a disheartening event from Fleck that he immediately fired his defensive coordinator, restructured his coaching staff and his program can easily count that they’ve won seven of its last eight games.

Lovie Smith’s inability to acquire signees and commitments from dynamic playmakers on both sides of the ball seemingly gets highlighted as Fleck’s marketing phrases and social media presentation resonates with teenagers trying to find a home to play football.

Go count the butts in the seats.

Minnesota is likely to have a sold-out crowd this weekend for its Homecoming festivities and the Illini fans, some of which express frustration and even worse apathy with its football program, still couldn’t fill Memorial Stadium two weeks ago even when Nebraska fans took over Champaign and students got in for free.

Count the Illinois connections on Minnesota’s sideline

Minnesota running backs coach Kenni Burns is a native of Springfield, Illinois, and went to Sacred Heart-Griffin High School.

Illinois chancellor Robert J. Jones had a 34-year career at the University of Minnesota, where he began as a plant physiologist in the department of agronomy and plant genetics and rose through a series of academic administrative appointments, serving as senior vice president for academic administration at the University of Minnesota System from 2004 to 2013. You don’t think even an academic layman like Jones can look at Minnesota and then looks at the U of I football product and see a difference?

So as long as Fleck is on one sideline and Smith is on the other, this game will count on and off the field to both programs.

It counts big.

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