Recent Gophers QB Transfer Re-Enters Portal

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Former Minnesota Gophers QB Zach Pyron while playing for Georgia Tech
Credit: Brett Davis-Imagn Images

The Minnesota Gophers football team is working through its slate of spring practices, as they prepare for a big summer and another transition at quarterback in 2025. But the ever-expanding Big Ten waits for nobody and the Gophers cannot afford to take a step back next season.

So, who will be the next Gopher QB1, now that Max Brosmer is moving on to the NFL? That is the biggest question surrounding PJ Fleck and offensive coordinator Greg Harbaugh this offseason.

Minnesota Gophers getting closer to naming their 2025 starting QB?

Heading into spring, the Gophers had a few possible options for their new quarterback. The frontrunner is Drake Lindsey, a third-year junior who might be the most talented arm to wear maroon and gold since Fleck took over in 2017.

His competition? Two transfers that signed out of the portal late last year — Virginia Tech’s Dylan Wittke and Georgia Tech’s Zach Pyron. Wittke — who has never thrown a collegiate pass — came in as a much longer shot to win the job than Pyron.

He played 19 games in three years at Georgia Tech, completing 88 of 155 passes (56.8%) for 5 touchdowns and 7 interceptions. Lindsey got on the field in only three games last season, tossing five passes, completing four of them (including a touchdown).

On Thursday, though, we may have gotten our first major giveaway on who is winning the MN Gophers offseason QB competition when the aforementioned Zach Pyron re-entered the transfer portal just four months in Minnesota.

Zach Pyron went to Georgia Tech as a four-star quarterback with quite a bit of hype surrounding him. He was the 18th best quarterback in the country and the 15th best player out of Alabama, overall (247Sports). Pyron earned all-state honors twice in high school, along with four all-region teams and four all-county teams.

He was also named Alabama state football MVP in 2019, as a senior, after leading his high school team to three state championships, over the course of his four seasons at the helm. Unfortunately for Zach, he hasn’t been that type of QB at the college level, and now he is onto his second team in less than a half-year.

Drake Lyndsey looks like the next starting QB at Minnesota

Since then MN Gophers sophomore Tanner Morgan went off in 2019 for 3,200 yards, 30 touchdowns and just 7 interceptions — throwing to two of the best wide receivers in program history, in Tyler Johnson and Rashod Bateman — Minnesota’s offense struggled to find a groove through the air. That moved Fleck to a type of offensive conservatism not seen in modern American football since the 90s.

Related: PJ Fleck, MN Gophers Receive First Commit of New High School Recruiting Class

But last year, we saw all of that change with the arrival of FCS transfer, Max Brosmer, who the coaching staff was able to trust in a way that they had never experienced before and he repaid them with 2,828 passing yards, 18 touchdowns and 6 interceptions.

As it appears now, Drake Lyndsey will be the next starting quarterbackk of the Minnesota Gophers. We’ll see if he can take the torch, after everything he learned from one year sitting behind Brosmer.

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