EUGUNE, Ore. — The visitors’ postgame interview “room” for Autzen Stadium didn’t, in a small way, cushion the fall from the Gophers’ 42-13 loss to eighth-ranked Oregon on Friday. It didn’t even sterilize from it.

Thin white walls of a temporary event tent allowed for the sounds of reveling Ducks fans departing the venue to contrast from the downbeat scene inside. Lights flooded the podium, leaving a squinting P.J. Fleck to ask, “This necessary?”

After what happened under the stadium lights on national TV, there was no escaping how noncompetitive Minnesota was against another program in position to make the College Football Playoff in December.

When Fleck was at multiple more-comfortable podiums during Big Ten Media Days in Las Vegas in July, the head coach talked about his program’s dre

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