College Football Bowls 2025: Minnesota Gophers Shoot For 9th Straight Bowl Win Over New Mexico

The college football bowl season continues following 11 pre-Christmas bowl games. I cover those and add picks and opinions in my college football bowls 2025 update at OSGA. Also included are the College Football Playoff games with the CFB quarterback ratings and stats. I’ll be chippin’-in more quarterfinals coverage in the days ahead.

College Football Bowls 2025

Rate Bowl – New Mexico vs. Minnesota (-1.5), 42.5
Chase Field – Phoenix, AZ | 4:30 pm | ESPN

I have a media credential to attend this game with my alma mater (Minnesota) on a 8-game bowl winning streak – longest active streak in college football. Six of those wins are under current head coach P.J. Fleck. This is the best bowl matchup of the day. I did cover and attend the Guaranteed Rate Bowl at this site in 2023 to see a high-scoring Kansas win over UNLV. The Gophers (7-5) went 7-0 at home with two come-from-behind close wins over non-bowlers Rutgers and Purdue. Goldy Gopher was awful on the road with blowout losses to Ohio State, Oregon and Iowa, a close loss at Northwestern, and a double-digit loss to Cal, who just lost to Hawaii in the Hawaii Bowl.

New Mexico (9-3) easily covered as big ‘Dog vs. two Big Ten teams at Michigan and crushing UCLA on the road. First-year Lobos head coach Jason Eck did a terrific job leading the Lobos and earned Mountain West Coach of the Year honors. Eck and his staff have many ties to Minnesota having coached Minnesota State and other smaller schools previously. The Gophers scored and allowed 23 points per game this season, but scored only 19.4 points per game vs. FBS opponents. The offense was awful on the road except against Northwestern, and Minnesota was 1-5 vs. bowl teams and outgained by five of those teams. In fact, the Gophers were out-gained by 9-of-10 FBS opponents this season by an average of 145 yards per game. The Lobos defense was very solid against average to sub-par offenses like the Gophers this season, and overall allowed just 3.4 yards per rush and held opponents 34 yards per game below their average led by top tackler and co-MWC Defensive Player of the Year, LB Jaxton Eck (coaches son). New Mexico went 5-1 ATS vs. fellow bowl teams this season.

Opinion: New Mexico

Media game notes on Minnesota and New Mexico.