For the second straight year, Maryland football opens Big Ten play with a game against Minnesota. Before the Terps take the field Saturday, we wanted to know a little more about the Golden Gophers, so we caught up with Jack Warrick of the Minnesota Daily. Our conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.

After a 5-7 record in his first season with the team, P.J. Fleck brought in a pretty solid recruiting class this year (38th in the nation, per 247Sports). What direction is the program headed in right now? What’s a realistic finish for the Gophers this year?

Overall, Minnesota is headed in a positive direction. The team is very young with a starting quarterback who’s a walk-on freshman, but they played well enough to get out of nonconference play undefeated. I think they can finish 6-6 this year.

This is the second straight season that Minnesota has dominated in nonconference play. Are the Gophers for real this time, or will they stumble down the stretch like they did in 2017?

I think it’ll be similar to last year in that they won’t be at the top of the conference by the end of the season, but I think they have more weapons on offense this year — and an experienced enough defense — to help them get a couple more wins in Big Ten play.

Last year, Minnesota had some of the worst quarterback play in the Big Ten. Fleck has given the reins to true freshman Zack Annexstad this season, and he’s held his own under center. How do you see Annexstad performing against the Big Ten?

Annexstad still needs to grow a lot and find himself in different situations. Big Ten play is a different animal than the nonconference schedule, and it’ll be interesting to see how Annexstad reacts when things don’t go his way (he hasn’t thrown an interception yet). But he has looked good and thrown the ball well in the non-conference schedule, so we’ll have to see.

Two of the Gophers’ top running backs — Rodney Smith and Shannon Brooks — are out for the rest of the year. How will the team cope with their absence? Can the other RBs make up for their lost production?

The Gophers will cope by using two freshmen and the older and bigger back Jonathan Femi-Cole. Bryce Williams got most of the handoffs in the last two games, and he did well when the team needed him. The ground game will suffer from the loss of the two veterans, who were relied on last year, but the freshmen and wildcat quarterback Seth Green can help make up for that.

Finish the sentence: Minnesota wins this game if…

…Zack Annexstad plays like he did in non-conference play and the running backs are able to establish the ground game and gain yards against a Big Ten defense.