As the 2019 season brings to a close another decade of college football, Badgers Wire has been engaged in a series of reflective pieces. “Record Review” has examined how the Badgers have fared against the rest of the Big Ten Conference this past decade. The final installment of our 10-part series — which looked at the four best programs in the Big Ten East (Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan State, and Michigan) plus the entire Big Ten West — is a look at the Badgers’ record against their biggest rival, Minnesota. This is a rivalry that sparks intensity whenever the two programs meet. The Battle for Paul Bunyan’s Axe is the most played rivalry in Division I college football, with 129 meetings between the two schools. (Lafayette-Lehigh is, of course, not Division I.) That said, nobody would complain if they brought back the Slab of Bacon trophy for one year.
Using Stassen, Badgers Wire pulled up every result against Minnesota over the past decade, and fans already know the score here. The Badgers have won 9 of 10 meetings, including this year’s meeting that determined the Big Ten West Division winner. Their only loss was 2018. In terms of success against a rival, it doesn’t get much better than what Wisconsin is doing here. The average margin of victory by Wisconsin is 31-18. It’s really hard to do much better for the Badgers against the Golden Gophers.
There’s no need to speak at great length about the importance of this game. Everyone in both states knows what it means. Someone has to win this game to be considered a coach worth keeping at either program. To put a fine point on just how fiercely fought this series has been, Wisconsin holds the edge in the all-time head-to-head by one win, 61-60-8. That’s how tight the series is overall. Imagine playing in college football’s most played Division I rivalry for well over a century and nearly splitting all games 50-50. This game matters. This is the only game that matters during the week it is played.
The Badgers don’t need to adjust a whole lot going forward. There’s no need to talk about their toughest loss in the series this past decade because they only have one loss, period. As far as they’re concerned, they won the biggest game that mattered between these two teams, the 2019 game a month ago, and it wasn’t particularly close. The game they won decided the West.
With P.J. Fleck at Minnesota, it seems quite unlikely that this will be the only time these two coaching staffs (Fleck and Paul Chryst) meet with the division on the line. Minnesota is on the way up, but if Wisconsin — in the 2020s — can keep doing what it did in the 2010s, the highest Minnesota can go in the Big Ten West is second place. The Badgers will keep making the trip to Indianapolis, thank you very much.