It wasn’t a positive start to the season for the Gophers football team.

The Gophers were plagued by offensive woes and mistakes at the wrong time in their 19-17 season-opener loss to North Carolina Thursday night at Huntington Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.

While the result and much of what happened on the field Thursday night weren’t positive, that doesn’t mean there weren’t any positive takeaways for the Gophers. For example, it was a solid debut from first-year coordinator Corey Hetherman’s defense, Marcus Major held his own as a fill-in for Darius Taylor in the backfield, and despite some struggles, Max Brosmer showed flashes at quarterback as well.

Starting with the new defense under Hetherman, the unit held North Carolina to just 252 total yards of offense, coming home for a pair of sacks and defensive back Justin Walley recording a game-changing interception. The secondary was solid, the defensive line made some noise and the Tar Heels were unable to do much damage against the Gophers defense all night.

“I would say there’s a lot of good in that film too,” linebacker Cody Lindenberg said. “I hope everyone can see that too. But yeah, there were a lot of times where maybe someone wasn’t in their hole, there was a penalty here, a penalty there and those are the things that once we clean up, I think we played a really clean game outside of that. So it’s those little details that once we clean up, we’re going to continue to be an elite defense.”

North Carolina found the end zone just once against the Gophers’ defense — when quarterback Max Johnson ran for a 3-yard touchdown in the second quarter. That touchdown drive was only made possible because the Gophers shot themselves in the foot when a defensive holding penalty on Aidan Gousby negated a strip sack by Jai’Onte McMillan that Lindenberg had recovered earlier in the possession. Instead, the drive was kept alive, with Johnson eventually running in for the score.

But the rest of the night, the Gophers held the Tar Heels to field goals. North Carolina moved the ball enough for Noah Burnette to score four with his right foot, including a go-ahead, 45-yard boot that ended up being the game-winning shot with 1 minute, 44 seconds left in the game, but the defense kept the U in the game despite the offense completely stalling after halftime.

And with their defense keeping them in the game, the offense came to life on its last gasp, marching 46 yards down the field to get a look at a potential game-winning, 47-yard field goal attempt. Dragan Kesich missed the net far right. Unfortunately for the Gophers, the miss takes away a drive in which Brosmer seemed to find his groove under center when it mattered most.

Brosmer threw a pass down the left sideline to Daniel Jackson that was incomplete, but drew a 15-yard pass interference penalty. He hit Elijah Spencer for a 20-yard gain before finding Jackson for another eight yards. He also connected with Jameson Geers on a 9-yard completion during the drive.

“I’m really proud of our team’s determination and their fight and what they did to come back like that, and especially because I think everyone thought we were in a bad way and couldn’t get anything going, and then boom, we got it done,” Gophers coach P.J. Fleck said.

All in all, Brosmer completed 13 of 21 passes for 166 yards. Fleck said he thought it took Brosmer a while to adjust, but that he showed flashes of what they’ve seen in practice.

“We’d like to be more efficient in the passing game,” Brosmer said. “I thought I had to do a much better job on both sides of setting them up, putting the ball where it needs to be for the guys. I thought the guys did a really good job of getting open (Thursday).”

Despite a shaky debut, Brosmer’s ability to step up and lead the Gophers down the field on the final drive gives us reason to believe he’ll continue to improve as the season progresses. It’s also an example of the leadership qualities that Fleck and the Gophers coaching staff have been raving about this offseason.

And Brosmer’s life will also be easier when the U gets back its best playmaker in Taylor. And in Taylor’s absence, Major showed he can provide a significant boost to the backfield as well.

There’s certainly no way to disguise the fact that it was a poor offensive performance from the Gophers on Thursday night. They mustered just 244 yards of total offense. They made too many mistakes on both sides of the ball. But they also put enough good stuff on tape that would indicate they can turn it around in Week 2 and beyond. That’s where their focus is now.

“We know what kind of team we are, and that was the whole message. And we know we beat ourselves for the most part,” Walley said. “And we just have to tell everybody: Keep everybody going. That was just one game, and the goal is to go 1-0 next week.”