The Minnesota Golden Gophers are under one week until they kick off their 2025 season against the Buffalo Bulls. Next Thursday, the Gophers and Bulls will kick off their season at Huntington Bank Stadium at 7:00 p.m. local time. With six days remaining, the Gophers are sitting as a heavy favorite over the Bulls. According […]
The Minnesota Golden Gophers are under one week until they kick off their 2025 season against the Buffalo Bulls. Next Thursday, the Gophers and Bulls will kick off their season at Huntington Bank Stadium at 7:00 p.m. local time.
With six days remaining, the Gophers are sitting as a heavy favorite over the Bulls. According to BetMGM, the current spread in the matchup is 18.5-points in favor of Minnesota. The total for the matchup is currently sitting at 44.5 points, while the Gophers are a moneyline favorite of -1000. Buffalo is a +650 underdog.
According to BetMGM’s data, 63% of the bets on the spread have been in favor of the Gophers to cover the 18.5-point spread, while the over has received an overwhelming 86% of all bets.
Last season, the Gophers were 8-5 against the spread, but they performed particularly well as a favorite, covering in seven of eight games. They were also 3-0 against the spread as a home favorite.
Buffalo was also successful against the spread in 2024, finishing with a 9-4 overall record. All four instances in which they failed to cover came as underdogs. Last fall, in their only matchup against a Power Four opponent, they were a 32-point underdog to Missouri and failed to cover, losing 38-0.
Overall, Buffalo in their first year of the Pete Lembo era went 9-4, an impressive turnaround from a 3-9 season in 2023. The Bulls are once again expected to be a quality team in 2025, but are not the favorites in the conference. In the 2025 MAC Football Coaches Preseason Poll, the Bulls were picked to finish fourth behind Toledo, Miami (OH), and Ohio.
Minnesota, Buffalo coaches offer thoughts on week one matchup
“Buffalo is a great football team. 9-4 last year. Anytime you win nine games, you’re a really good football team,” Minnesota defensive coordinator Danny Collins said earlier this week.
“This is a very good football team,” he continued to say. “Like I said, the running back had over 1,000 yards last year. They run the football. Their offensive coordinator has been a coach for almost as long as I’ve been alive. So just in terms of what he knows and schematics and things like that, he’s very good. Offense runs with RPOs. They throw shots when they need to. Coach Lembo. He’s all right. He’s all right. Being in the MAC for a long time, at Western Michigan, I understand what this game means to them, and we’ll be ready.”
“I love first games, and it’s less about who you’re actually playing and it’s more about the challenge of playing well,” Pete Lembo told the Buffalo media at Buffalo’s Media Days last week. “In my career, I believe that first games are won and lost by teams that play efficiently, play clean football, don’t have self-inflicted wounds.”
“I hope that we can go into Minnesota and play well regardless of the fact that it’s a Big Ten team in a Big Ten environment,” he said. “It’s all about us and trying to play good, clean football.”
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Category: General Sports
