The opening line for Minnesota's August 28 season opener against the Buffalo Bulls at Huntington Bank Stadium has been released. With just 101 days until Minnesota's 2025 season begins, DraftKings has the Golden Gophers as an 18.5-point favorite over the Bulls.

The Bulls will enter 2025 in their second season under head coach Pete Lembo, who led the program to a 9-4 record in 2024, a strong bounceback season from a 2023 season in which the program went 3-9. The Bulls played one Power Four program last season, falling to the Missouri Tigers 38-0 in Columbia.

The Gophers will be looking to build upon a 2024 campaign in which they went 8-5. However, there will be a new signal-caller for Minnesota this fall, as they'll hand the reins over to redshirt freshman quarterback Drake Lindsey.

This will be the third all-time matchup between Minnesota and Buffalo. Both previous matchups ended in favor of the Gophers, with a 41-17 victory in 2002 and a 17-7 win in 2017.

Since P.J. Fleck took over the Minnesota program in 2017, the Golden Gophers are 24-3 in non-conference games, an 88.9% winning percentage. That is the fourth-best non-conference record by winning percentage in college football, trailing only Georgia (94.6%), Oklahoma State (89.7%), and Alabama (89.5%).

Notably, all three of those losses have come since 2021, including a 14-10 loss to Bowling Green in 2021. The Gophers also fell in both of their matchups against North Carolina in 2023 and 2024.

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