Injuries at running back have piled up for Minnesota Golden Gophers

CEDAR RAPIDS — He has a cool name and went to a high school with a cool name.

Derik LeCaptain is a redshirt sophomore for the Minnesota Golden Gophers, a kid from Gardner, Wis., who attended Southern Door High School. That’s as in picturesque Door County up in the northeast part of the state.

LeCaptain rushed for 5,199 yards and 100 touchdowns as a running back at Southern Door, set a Wisconsin state record for most yards from scrimmage (rushing, passing, receiving). Yet he is a linebacker for Minnesota, which plays Saturday afternoon at Kinnick Stadium against the Iowa Hawkeyes (2:30 kickoff, Big Ten Network).

For the most part.

LeCaptain reverted back to his high school ways two weeks ago in a win over Northwestern, carrying the football three times for 31 yards. He’s the poster child for this 2021 Golden Gophers team, one that has not been able to keep its running backs healthy.

“Everybody is on deck,” Minnesota Coach P.J. Fleck said. “I told the entire team if any of you have ever carried a ball in any part of your career, if you have a picture of a button from the YMCA league with a ball in your hands, you are going to be available to possibly run the ball for us this year. We’re going in, talking to their parents, their aunts and uncles, seeing if they ever did that. Diving into some Pop Warner film.”

Minnesota lost the outstanding Mohamed Ibrahim to an Achilles tendon injury in its opener Sept. 2 against Ohio State. His immediate backup, Trey Potts, was hurt in an Oct. 2 game against Purdue and also is out for the rest of the season.

Bryce Williams injured a lower leg in the aforementioned Northwestern game and is done. What that leaves for scholarship backs is redshirt freshman Ky Thomas and true freshman Mar’Keise Irving.

Oh, and LeCaptain, of course. And whomever else the Gophers might find along the way.

“We have five tailbacks out, which is well documented, right?” Fleck said. “Thank goodness we have seven scholarship tailbacks. Well, we still have two. If it was a NFL roster, we’d be on the street. Most teams carry five, 5 1/2 on average scholarship tailbacks. Your best receiver has kind of been in and out all year. I think one of the biggest things this year, one of the biggest inconsistencies, has been it’s been inconsistent. The wide receivers, the running backs.”

Chris Autman-Bell is the receiver Fleck mentioned. He missed the first two games of the season because of injury and was dinged up again last week against Illinois, though Fleck said “he’s good” for the Iowa game.

Speaking of last week, a 14-6 home loss was the second rather baffling one of 2021 for Minnesota. The Gophers were unceremoniously dropped by Bowling Green at home in late September, 14-10.

“We just didn’t play our best football,” Fleck said. “When you go back and watch the film, we didn’t have a lot of explosive plays, but we didn’t allow ourselves to have those explosive plays. We didn’t make some plays in the pass game, and we didn’t protect very well, as we had a ton of sacks. It falls on everybody. It falls on me as a head coach, the coaches, players and everybody else inside the organization.

“We have two really good tailbacks, but they’re still freshmen, and there’s a lot of pass pro stuff.”

In the Illinois and Bowling Green losses, Minnesota’s offense was not very good, which goes back to the inconsistency thing Fleck mentioned. Though their line is good, big and experienced, the Gophers had a difficult time protecting quarterback Tanner Morgan in both those games.

Fleck said everyone is aware of the difficult task posed this week by Iowa’s defense.

“I think our whole offense obviously has to rebound,” said Minnesota offensive coordinator Mike Sanford. “The response from what we did a week ago as a team, as an offense, as a position group and everybody top to bottom has to respond.”

“You have to win the turnover battle here,” Fleck said. “You have to in a rivalry game, especially, but anytime you play Iowa, when you watch them play defense, all 11 guys somehow, someway have their eyes on the football. You don’t see that very much from teams. They do what they do, and they’ve done what they’ve done forever on defense. And they’re very good at what they do.”

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