MINNEAPOLIS — If it weren’t already abundantly clear, it just ain’t gonna be pretty in 2020.

When we look back on the COVID-19 version of Purdue vs. Minnesota, we’ll remember Payne Durham making what should’ve been a go-ahead touchdown reception for the Boilermakers. We’ll remember Jeff Brohm ripping the officials a new one after a horrendous pass interference call wiped it off the board.

There was malfeasance. It robbed Purdue of the game, a 3-1 start and the chance to remain in contention for the Big Ten West crown.

But there was also resilience — especially considering Friday’s game might not have happened.

More than 2 dozen players and staff missed the Golden Gophers’ 34-31 victory over the Boilermakers on Friday due to COVID-19 and injuries. Coach P.J. Fleck said the attrition put Minnesota “close” to the positivity rates, per B1G protocols, that have already led to several cancellations this season.

The coach credited the B1G as well as his school’s administration and health staff for performing rapid testing and contact tracing that has helped mitigate the spread. Minnesota has had multiple players miss each game due to COVID-19.

They’ve yet to pause workouts or have games canceled, though.

This time, the Gophers spent most of the week knowing they’d be without the likes of top rushing end Boye Mafe, tight end Brevyn Spann-Ford, up-and-coming safety Michael Dixon, No. 2 running back Treyson Potts, offensive line coach Brian Callahan and a host of other personnel.

“That’s a really special team in there,” said Fleck, whose team had 61 scholarship players dressed Friday at TCF Bank Stadium. “This win isn’t gonna go down as one of the greatest wins in Gopher history, but I told them I’ll never forget this day … because of what it meant, what it represented, how they won it with all the adversity.”

Said quarterback Tanner Morgan: “Our whole mentality was it’s out of our control. If we can go out there and play with 11 guys, we’ll play with 11 guys. It doesn’t matter.”

For perhaps the 1st time all season, Minnesota — dressed in gold jerseys with the phrase “end racism” on their name plates — displayed that type of edge on an otherwise quiet, chilly, late fall evening in the Twin Cities.

Receiver Chris Autman-Bell’s magnificent 4th-down catch to set up the 3rd-quarter score that gave the Gophers a 28-17 cushion. Morgan’s 15-for-22, 264-yard, efficient, mistake-free night that looked a lot like what we saw last year. Leading FBS rusher Mohamed Ibrahim’s gritty 102 yards on the ground despite an apparent wrist injury that kept him out of the game’s latter stages. A bottom-of-the-B1G defense that remains porous but bowed up when it counted most, highlighted by Josh Aune’s game-sealing interception on the snap following the phantom pass interference call.

All from a team that looked like it barely belonged on the same field against Iowa here a week ago.

“We just keep rolling every day, no matter who’s out or whatever happens,” said Autman-Bell, who led the Gophers with 129 yards on 5 catches. “We got a lot of guys who can play football here. That’s why they’re here.”

A whopping 27 different defensive players. many of them underclassmen, cracked the participation chart for Minnesota.

“We played a ton of people,” Fleck said. “That’s what it’s going to take in 2020. It might not just benefit now, but that’s going to benefit in the long run. You’ve got to be willing to make some of those investments while trying to win now.”

It’s not all duckies, bunnies and rainbows, of course. This defense still has a hard time stopping anyone.

That now includes Purdue 2nd-string quarterback Jack Plummer, who completed 35 of 42 passes for 367 yards and often found Durham, wideout David Bell or shifty slot man Rondale Moore — playing in his 1st game of the season — for big plays.

That includes the one that got taken away.

It had social media ablaze, and from multiple angles there didn’t appear to be any contact from Durham that would’ve prevented defensive back Phil Howard from making a play on the ball.

“I think you know what I think,” Brohm said afterward. “I don’t like it a lot, but I can’t really comment on it. It’s part of the game, and we’ve got to move forward, but yes, I didn’t like it at all.

“I did not get a good explanation. Your guess is as good as mine.”

Fleck said he didn’t see the play live but “there was a lot of contact” on the replay. (There wasn’t.)

“There’s other things on our side you don’t think are a penalty, but it’s a bang-bang play,” said the coach, who has had something of a passive-aggressive feud with Brohm since both coaches took over their respective programs in 2017. “Those things get called. It happened to swing toward our favor, if it happened to be a penalty.”

“Refs made a call,” Howard said. “We still had to finish the game. Aune responded and made a heck of a play.”

The negated touchdown with less than a minute left wasn’t the only break Minnesota caught.

Purdue kicker J.D. Dellinger bailed out Fleck’s ill-advised decision to go for it on 4th-and-1 from his own 34 with 6:16 to go. After Wildcat quarterback Seth Green was stuffed for a 3-yard loss, Dellinger missed a 33-yard field goal that would’ve knotted the score at 34.

Gophers defensive tackle Micah Dew-Treadway made a powerful push to block Dellinger’s low kick at the end of the 1st half, too.

The officials also made a puzzling call late after Bell appeared to rip an interception away from Minnesota’s Coney Durr and snare the ball out of midair before it touched the turf. Inexplicably, it was called incomplete.

There were indications it’d be a long night when it took almost 5 minutes for the officiating crew to review the game’s 1st play from scrimmage.

But as egregiously bad as the stripes were at times, these things tend to even themselves out over the course of a game, season and even multiple seasons.

Not that that makes it any easier for Purdue’s team and fans to digest.

“The call is the call,” Aune said. “We’re players. We’ve got to play the next play. In my head I’m just thinking, ‘Do my job.'”

The St. Paul native did, and Minnesota now has at least a little more steam heading into next Saturday’s Battle for Paul Bunyan’s Axe with border rival Wisconsin.

The Badgers should be heavily favored. They surely represent a much tougher task than Purdue, especially if the Gophers continue to see their ranks depleted.

But for one weekend, at least, a team that has been largely disappointing after gaining 11 wins in 2019 has something to celebrate.

At a safe social distance, of course.

“It’s all about response,” Howard said, “and we just continue to respond. That’s what we do.”