When Darius Taylor announced his return to Gophers football in 2026, there was hope that he could be one of the best running backs in the Big Ten. He has just 64 carries for 154 yards, but P.J. Fleck hasn’t lost confidence in Minnesota’s senior running back.
When Taylor broke onto the scene as a true freshman in 2023, he looked like a future star. He averaged 159.2 rushing yards in his first five games as a starter. He has never surpassed that number in a game since his first year with the program.
He set a career high with 1,336 yards from scrimmage in 2024, but he hasn’t been able to find that consistency since then. Injuries limited him in 2025, and since an injury in Week 2 this season against Mississippi State, he has looked almost unrecognizable compared to the player we saw in 2023.
“It’s just going back to that word consistency,” Fleck said at his weekly press conference on Monday. “I think the more he practices, and he’s able to practice the way he can practice, and we need him to practice, the better he’s going to be. I mean, Darius Taylor is a very good football player, period. And he’s only going to continue to get better.
“There are things that happen in our lives that are unfortunate that you work and battle through. Right? Period. Especially if it’s an injury, and you do everything you can to get better from that, but he’s a really good football player. In the pass game and the run game. And we need him at his absolute best.”
In the same press conference, Fleck said that Taylor has been in practice every single day as a full participant, which makes his earlier comments even more confusing. Taylor didn’t play at all in Week 3 against Akron. You never want to look too far into press conference errors, but his flip-flopping makes the entire situation weird.
Taylor’s production has reached an all-time low over the last three weeks, with just 44 carries for 83 yards against Big Ten competition. Minnesota’s run game is stuck in neutral, and Taylor has done little to help the Gophers get into gear.
“I know every day watching him, whether that’s in the training room, or whether that’s with our running backs coach Mohamed Ibrahim, whether that’s with the offensive staff, whether that’s with him and his yoga, and his Pilates. Nobody’s working harder to make sure that he does this part for this football team,” Fleck continued.
“I am really, really proud of him, and it’s only going to continue to get better because of the commitment that he has made. That’s been consistent since the day he walked in this door. But sometimes it’s not exactly everything that you wanted to get out of it, but you identify it, you’re transparent with it, and then you go fix it, and he’ll do that.”
Taylor has found some success as a receiver this season, with 18 receptions for 155 yards, and he leads Minnesota with five total touchdowns. Elon transfer TJ Thomas has outperformed him in nearly every major rushing statistic, except for carries.
Minnesota doesn’t have the same financial resources as the top programs in the country, so it has to make hard decisions. It’s entirely fair to hypothesize that the Gophers favored retaining Taylor over keeping emerging underclassman Fame Ijeboi, who’s now a star at Purdue after transferring in the offseason.
Despite an incredibly underwhelming first half of the season, Fleck sounds like a coach who still favors Taylor as Minnesota’s top running back. Whether or not that continues to be the case this week against Iowa remains to be seen. If the Gophers want to finish the season strong, Taylor needs to be better.
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This story was originally published by Bring Me The Sports on Oct 19, 2026, where it first appeared in the MN Gophers section. Add Bring Me The Sports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.