When Minnesota football camp began in August, sophomore Bryan Cupito was slotted as the starting quarterback.

Cupito has started every game for the Gophers this season, and has recorded 71 of the team’s 75 successful passes.

Monday, Illinois head coach Ron Turner announced that his starting quarterback would not be senior Jon Beutjer. The Illini also will have a relatively young player leading the team – but the difference will be in experience.

While the three candidates to lead the Illini have three Big Ten starts among them, none have seen enough action to give them experience comparable to Cupito’s.

The Minnesota quarterback has averaged 180 passing yards per game.

But, he’s struggled when facing tough defenses in recent games against Michigan, Michigan State and Penn State.

“As always with a quarterback, he gets far too much credit when things go good and far too much criticism when things go bad,” said Minnesota head coach Glen Mason. “A lot of times his lack of performance is dependent on what some other guy is doing.”

Cupito was 11-of-33 passing against Michigan State Oct. 16 and 8-of-22 against Michigan Oct. 9. The Gophers lost both games, dropping their record to 5-2.

While Illinois is hoping to turn around its luck after losing four straight, Minnesota only wants to stop a downward fall before it builds momentum.

And Cupito is leading the effort.

“He’s not like, ‘That’s OK.’ He is more like, ‘Coach, I’ve got to make that play,'” Mason said. “He’s a no-nonsense guy. I think his evaluation of what he’s doing and what I think he’s doing is far different. I’m a lot more realistic with a first-year starting quarterback in the Big Ten conference.”

Cupito’s drive gives Mason reason to believe the Gophers can turn around their season, despite dropping out of the rankings this week.

“Can he play better? You bet he can; that’s what gets me excited about him. But I like how he handles it. I like how he handles the challenge. Anybody can go in there and play when things are going real good; I like what I see in the kid.”

Tackling Troubles

Both Illinois and Minnesota have struggled with their tackling throughout the season. Mason said that while his team has improved, he still is not happy with the defensive play.

“I’m like any coach – if you don’t play well defensively, you say you really tackled poorly,” Mason said. “To be quite frank with you, after watching the film, we didn’t tackle as poorly as I thought, but we still missed tackles that really hurt us.”

What could have been

“I was really impressed with how (the Illini) played against Michigan. They could have very easily won that football game, and probably if you talk to Ron Turner, he thinks they should have won that football game.”

– Mason on Illinois’ play against Michigan Oct. 16