Tag: Minnesota Golden Gophers Football

There is an old truth about sports worth mentioning after the Wisconsin Badgers defeated the Minnesota Golden Gophers on Saturday. Yes, we’re going to turn our attention to the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Big Ten Championship Game soon enough, but we still have a few things to say about the win over Minnesota, which will remain a highly satisfying memory through the offseason when it arrives in early January.

We begin with the old truth referred to above: Sometimes, HOW one wins a competition is just as important as the win itself. I strongly think this truth applies to Wisconsin’s 38-17 victory in Minneapolis. I also think a lot of Wisconsin fans can intuitively understand this statement, but let’s flesh it out just to make sure:

First, Wisconsin maintained its identity in this game. Jonathan Taylor didn’t run for 200 yards, or 150, or even 100, but Wisconsin’s offensive line was still strong. We saw Paul Chryst get the ball to fast receivers on handoffs, something he loves to do. We saw Jack Coan surgically pick apart an opposing defense with a passing game which never seemed to be taking undue risks. Wisconsin won within the structure of its offense. It didn’t have to be something it wasn’t in order to flourish in this game. Wisconsin won in bad weather, something it takes pride in. Winning in nasty conditions is something every Big Ten team enjoys doing.

Wisconsin maintained its identity in this game. What it also did was beat Minnesota to a pulp. This was a beatdown. It was decisive. It’s not as though this was a game in which a huge turnover or a series of lucky breaks enabled Wisconsin to survive a rough first half, after which the Badgers regrouped. Yes, the Daniel Faalele injury to Minnesota hurt the Gophers’ chances, but Wisconsin had less-than-fully-healthy players in its secondary, and the Badgers’ back line of defense still controlled Minnesota’s NFL-quality receivers. Wisconsin was just better, stronger, faster, tougher. No one can dispute that. It was a butt-kicking, and not a game in which the Badgers escaped or survived. They THRIVED.

Let’s say this game had gone down to the final minute, or let’s say this game was more of a pure track meet, and Wisconsin had improbably won by a narrow margin when playing a style of football it probably wouldn’t have preferred. In either of those hypothetical scenarios, P.J. Fleck and the Gophers could have said to themselves, “We lost Faalele, we played in bad weather, and we still gave Wisconsin a run, showing we could play the style of game we wanted to play. We just didn’t play our style WELL enough to win.” Minnesota could have taken a lot more confidence from such a turn of events… but that isn’t the turn of events we saw.

Winning this particular game in this particular way is as meaningful for the Badgers as the win itself. Given how much the win itself means, I’d say the meaning of the method — the way in which the Badgers battered the Gophers — matters quite a lot. It is the perfect emotional fuel to take to Indianapolis against Ohio State.

Saturday offered some amazing plot twists in rivalry games. Alabama scored 45 points without Tua Tagovailoa against a legitimately strong Auburn defense… and lost. Arizona and Arizona State, which was supposed to be a shootout, produced just one first-half touchdown. Arizona’s defense played one of its best games of the year… and the Wildcats still lost decisively. Weird things can and do happen in rivalry games.

The Wisconsin Badgers beating the Minnesota Golden Gophers wasn’t weird. The proven, tested, familiar Big Ten West powerhouse defeated the up-and-comers who had not encountered this kind of pressure before. That wasn’t weird. Wisconsin handled bad weather better than its opponent. That wasn’t weird, either.

What was weird: Wisconsin got 280 passing yards from Jack Coan and only 76 rushing yards from Jonathan Taylor. Coan decisively outplayed his opposite number, Minnesota quarterback Tanner Morgan, in the nasty conditions. Coan owned the stage and carried the Badgers’ offense.

If you know your recent Big Ten history (“recent” defined as the 21st century), you know that one of the more respected Big Ten quarterbacks this century is Ohio State’s Craig Krenzel. He won a national championship. He had a knack for making the huge play in the big moment. Recall the ugly game against Purdue when Krenzel hit Michael Jenkins with a downfield pass late in the fourth quarter to enable the Buckeyes to survive. Krenzel was a lot like Jay Barker of the 1992 national champion Alabama team: not great in terms of aggregate stats, but golden when all the pressure was on and his team needed a score in a do-or-die situation. That was Krenzel. He gained immortality as a result.

Let’s make one thing very clear here: Jack Coan wasn’t Craig Krenzel against Minnesota on Saturday. He was A LOT BETTER. This was not the “stumble around for three quarters and then make the huge play late” template Krenzel established. This was just a steady, strong performance the whole way. Let’s get something straight about Coan, who had been more Krenzel-ish in previous weeks: This game against Minnesota was not the cautious “game manager” style of quarterbacking we had seen for much of the 2019 season.

Yes, the 15-of-22 passing line isn’t all that surprising. Efficient, percentage passing figured — before this game — to be a part of the Wisconsin attack… but that’s precisely the point: This wasn’t a safe passing game — not entirely at any rate. Coan’s 15 completions weren’t for the 159 yards Bart Houston threw for on an 11-of-12 stat line in the 2017 Cotton Bowl win Paul Chryst gained over P.J. Fleck and Western Michigan. That day revealed a “safer” Wisconsin passing game, with tight end Troy Fumagalli being Houston’s main outlet.

No, Coan’s 15 completions went for 280 yards. That’s 18.7 yards per completion. Coan was much more than the guy who needed to complete third-and-six throws earlier in the season (and didn’t do so enough against Ohio State). This was a quarterback who took command of his team and his offense, dominating the positional matchup against Morgan, who was throwing off his back foot all day. While Morgan was rattled by Wisconsin’s pass rush, Coan shook Minnesota’s defense with surgical strikes. It was role reversal for the two quarterbacks. Given the stakes, it was clearly Coan’s finest hour and his best performance at UW.

Rising to the moment like this means everything for Coan and for Badger fans. That Coan could climb past his limitations and not merely deliver a clutch play, but a whole clutch GAME, dramatically reshapes his place in Wisconsin football history. He could lose to Ohio State this coming Saturday, and barring something especially dramatic — fumbling on the goal line down four points in the final minute — that won’t matter at all. Jack Coan will be remembered as “the guy who won the Big Ten West and put it all together in miserable weather, ruining the Gophers’ season.”

“The Jack Coan Game” is now part of the Wisconsin-Minnesota series. It won Paul Bunyan’s Axe. It won a division title and a plane ticket to Indianapolis. It won a rematch with a great Ohio State team. It gave Wisconsin a shot at the Rose Bowl while firmly knocking Minnesota out of the Granddaddy. It was all of those things… but most of all, it was the game in which a team and a quarterback hugely reshaped how they will be remembered in history. That might be the greatest thing Jack Coan and his teammates won on Saturday in Minneapolis.

Chicagoans refer to it as “Bear Weather.” The Minnesota Vikings used to revel in cold weather in the old Metropolitan Stadium in the 1970s. The Green Bay Packers knew how to tough it out in the Ice Bowl and so many other cold-weather situations under Vince Lombardi. More recent Packer teams quarterbacked by Brett Favre and then Aaron Rodgers handled the Carolina Panthers and Chicago Bears in cold-weather NFC Championship Games.

Disclosure: I have never lived in the Midwest. However, my folks are from Chicago, and as someone who lives in Phoenix, the markers of territory on an NFL Sunday are the Steelers bar over there, the Browns bar over there, the Bears bar here, and the Packers bar there. The Midwest is never very far away in Phoenix, and I have talked to enough Midwesterners over the years to get a sense of how (rightly) prideful they are in being tough and sturdy when weather gets nasty.

“None of this domed-stadium crap.”

“Real men play championship football outdoors.”

“If Alabama or these other SEC teams had to play bowl games in THIS WEATHER, instead of always getting to play under a dome in New Orleans, or in Miami, I wonder if the SEC would be so good in the playoff or the BCS.”

That last point is especially accurate and potent in underscoring the advantage Big Ten teams WOULD have if playoff games were either on campus or moved to cold-weather outdoor sites in the North. SEC teams always have the advantage of playing in warm-weather or “weather-neutral” (dome) environments. Big Ten teams never get the benefit of playing games in THEIR preferred weather — not against Clemson or other Southern teams. Big Ten teams only play cold-weather games within the conference.

Therefore, it was only fitting that the Wisconsin Badgers and Minnesota Golden Gophers played in a wintry mix on Saturday. Minnesota fans probably thought their team was strong enough and good enough to handle the bad conditions, but as soon as the weather got nasty, so did the Badgers. It was beyond obvious that Minnesota’s offense functioned better in calm conditions. If you look at any photo gallery of the game, via a newspaper or website, you can see the pictures being bright and clear in the gray but precipitation-free first minutes of the contest. That’s when Minnesota grabbed a 7-0 lead and had the ball at the Wisconsin 35 with a chance to go up two scores.

P.J. Fleck — in a cautious decision he ought to regret all offseason — punted. It was the last time Minnesota enjoyed the true upper hand, because then the weather deteriorated… and so did the Gophers. Wisconsin had the sled dogs and the mashers and the snowplows. The Badgers threw the ball more sharply, hit harder, covered receivers more vigorously, and did everything with more confidence and toughness.

Minnesotans culturally like the fact that TCF Bank Stadium — unlike the Vikings’ new home, U.S. Bank Stadium — is outdoors. Again, the old Metropolitan Stadium was a point of pride for Minnesotans, given how often the Los Angeles Rams turned into icicles when playing the Vikings in NFL postseason games in the 1970s. Minnesotans want the bad weather. They want opposing teams to come to the great North and suffer.

It had to be painful for the Gophers and their fans to see — so clearly — that U.S. Bank Stadium or the old (now gone) Metrodome would have helped Minnesota in this game. A fast track in perfect weather conditions would have serviced the Gophers’ passing attack, much as an SEC team or Clemson regularly thrives in conditions which present no discomfort whatsoever.

Wisconsin, though, enjoyed the miserable weather. It made Minnesota miserable. You can tell who is relishing a bad weather day and who is trying to survive it. The decisiveness with which Wisconsin punched Minnesota in the teeth was noticeable, unending, and pervasive. Everyone on Wisconsin got in on the fun. No positional unit fell short of the coaching staff’s hopes for this game. It was easily Wisconsin’s most complete game this season. You could cite the Michigan game, but that game was over very quickly. This was a much tougher ask against a better team, on the road, at the end of the season, with a division title on the line… and Wisconsin dug very deep throughout its roster to Badger and batter the Gophers into submission.

The weather outside was frightful, but the Badgers were delightful. They created this primal scene after the game: Wisconsin players roared in a spirit of conquest, holding Paul Bunyan’s Axe aloft and partying well into the evening in Minneapolis:

We should all have this much fun. Wisconsin turned bad weather into a time for a celebration. Sounds pretty Midwestern to me.

If a picture was worth 1,000 words, look at the cover photo for this story. Look at Caesar Williams knocking the ball away from Tyler Johnson, in one of the one-on-one matchups the Wisconsin Badgers needed to win in order to beat the Minnesota Golden Gophers. Look at the confidence Williams displayed here. Look at the authoritative demonstration of textbook coverage.

The picture told the story of a Wisconsin secondary which did a complete 180 from previous weeks against Nebraska and Purdue. The picture told the story of a banged-up back line of defense which had valid reasons for uneven play and a spotty track record in the second half of the 2019 season, but regrouped and played its best football when everything mattered. We said all week here at Badgers Wire that if Wisconsin delivered the goods against the Gophers, the previous several weeks of relatively ordinary football would be forgotten. The Badgers played as though that was the absolute truth. As a result, they are going to Indianapolis. They will get their coveted rematch with Ohio State. They won back the Big Ten West title they lost in 2018. This team will be remembered fondly, no matter what happens next.

Hail, Caesar. Hail to Caesar Williams, Faion Hicks, and other members of a secondary which was asked to do a lot… and did more than it was asked. WAY more. If you had talked to Wisconsin fans before this game, and you had said that Minnesota would score 24 points against the Badgers, most UW fans probably would have said, “Hey, not bad. That gives us a chance to win.”

The final score says Wisconsin gave up 17 points, but if we’re being honest, it’s only 10. The Gophers scored a meaningless touchdown late in garbage time. Throw that one out if we are trying to accurately measure what this defense and this secondary achieved. When Minnesota was trying to come back, down 24-10 and inside the Badgers’ red zone, Wisconsin’s corners held up in man coverage on an island yet again. They had done that all day, staying strong and contesting catches on the perimeter when Tanner Morgan threw jump balls and asked his receivers to win them at the catch point. Williams, Hicks, and the rest of this secondary — under so much game pressure, on a day when their teammates needed them to dramatically improve — were golden against the Gophers.

This was a magnificent display. Jack Coan brought his A-game. Jim Leonhard brought his A-game. The front seven brought their A-game. So many Badgers, wearing shoulder pads or headsets, were at their best on Saturday. Yet, the position group under the most fire was the secondary. This is where Minnesota figured it could separate itself from Wisconsin. The Badgers’ secondary stuck to the Gophers and prevented that separation from happening.

Hail, Caesar, and the rest of a secondary which forged its finest hour of 2019.

Wow. Even the most optimistic fan of the Wisconsin Badgers probably wasn’t expecting THAT. A blowout win over the Minnesota Golden Gophers completely changes the way this 2019 season will be remembered. It also validates the belief that after the rough two-week stretch in Champaign and Columbus against Illinois and Ohio State, this team wasn’t quite ready to run through a brick wall with fire coming out of its ears.

The Badgers were just trying to survive their first few games of November. They were waiting for the Gophers. They were waiting to not only ruin Minnesota’s year, but make their own big statement for UW and win a Big Ten West title. They could not have spoken more loudly or eloquently. Now they are going back to Indianapolis, in prime time, just as they did in 2017. No, they’re not playing for a playoff berth — unlike 2017 — but they are playing Ohio State for the Big Ten title.

It is where Wisconsin wants to be. It is where Wisconsin expects to be. The coaches who lived with the inconsistencies of the past several weeks had a responsibility to get this team to play well in the one game which mattered more than any other in 2019. Paul Chryst and Jim Leonhard answered the call. They thoroughly outcoached P.J. Fleck and offensive coordinator Kirk Ciarrocca, serving as catalysts for this thumping of the Gophers, with Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit in attendance as part of ABC’s announcing crew.

Chryst was a little tentative early on, but as soon as Minnesota offensive lineman Daniel Faalele got injured — and as soon as Fleck weirdly punted on fourth and two inside the Wisconsin 36 in the first quarter — the Badgers took over this game. The players — especially the defense, which maxed out — deserve the credit, but the coaches get credit for having the players ready to play.

They had Caesar Williams and Faion Hicks ready to defend Minnesota’s wide receivers, Tyler Johnson and Rashod Bateman. They had the front seven ready to fill gaps and find lanes to the quarterback. Leonhard successfully rattled Tanner Morgan and took away the time the Gophers’ quarterback needs to execute Minnesota’s passing game. The Badgers forced the Gophers to throw outside the numbers. Minnesota wasn’t able to exploit the area between the hashmarks, where the Gophers normally do most of their damage through the air.

While Leonhard won the battle with fellow Broyles Award semifinalist Kirk Ciarrocca, Chryst and his offensive staff outflanked Minnesota’s defense. They got Jonathan Taylor involved in the passing game. They used end-arounds to keep Minnesota off-balance and uncertain. Chryst ordered a misdirection handoff on a kick return which gained big yardage and played a part in the Badgers maintaining the upper hand in the second half.

Chryst and Leonhard were both clever without being imprudent, aggressive without breaking Wisconsin’s identity. The Badgers were physical but not conservative, balanced but not predictable. Chryst and his offensive coaches got the best out of Jack Coan on an afternoon when the Badgers needed No. 17 to flourish. Every challenge facing this coaching staff was a challenge the staff answered.

Take a bow, Paul and Jim — and all the other assistants, while we’re at it — before preparing for Ohio State in Indianapolis. If Wisconsin’s coaches deserved heat in recent weeks, they definitely deserve ample credit after this masterpiece in Minneapolis.

 

If this Saturday’s 2019 edition of the Paul Bunyan’s Axe game between the Wisconsin Badgers and the Minnesota Golden Gophers can be compared to any game in UW-U of M history, it would be the 1962 game between the two teams. The game was for the Big Ten championship. Minnesota had just made consecutive Rose Bowls under head coach Murray Warmath, the last great coach in Minnesota history. Wisconsin was gunning for its second Rose Bowl in four seasons.

Heading into the 1962 edition of Badgers-Gophers, the two schools had made the last three Rose Bowls: Wisconsin under coach Milt Bruhn in 1959, Minnesota in 1960 and 1961. Moreover, if you look into these schools’ histories, some fascinating “crossover” details emerge. When you read this Sports Illustrated account of the 1962 game, you will note that Bruhn — a legitimately great coach at Wisconsin — played for Minnesota in the mid-1930s, when the Gophers became a national power under then-coach Bernie Bierman.

When Bierman was coaching Minnesota to prominence in the mid-1930s, Clarence Spears coached Wisconsin. This is the same Clarence Spears who coached at Minnesota in the late 1920s and guided a man you might have heard of: Bronko Nagurski, one of the greatest football players of all time. The Bierman era at Minnesota carried all the way through 1950. After three brief years of mediocrity, Warmath took over in 1954 and began another storied chapter of Minnesota history.

Bruhn began his tenure at Wisconsin in 1956. He won only one game his first season. In Year 2, he won six games. In Year 3, he went 7-1-1. In Year 4, he reached the Rose Bowl and began that glorious four-year period in which either Wisconsin or Minnesota represented the Big Ten in Pasadena. The 1962 game wasn’t just the height of a special season for Wisconsin and Minnesota, who both ended that regular season in the Associated Press Top 10; it was the last year in which Warmath and Bruhn both fielded great teams in the same season.

Warmath and Minnesota shared the Big Ten title in 1967 with Indiana and Purdue. (Indiana went to the Rose Bowl.) That was Warmath’s last hurrah. Bruhn never got back to the Granddaddy. No one could have known in 1962 that the flame would flicker and then die for Wisconsin football after the unforgettable 1963 Rose Bowl against USC.

Wisconsin won that 1962 game, 14-9, on a late 80-yard touchdown drive marked by a roughing-the-passer call which kept alive the Badgers’ march and wiped out a Minnesota interception. Minnesota fumed about the call, but the Golden Gophers failed to observe a longstanding principle about sports: Always be significantly better than your opponent, to the extent that one call can’t ruin your day. Minnesota failed to put away Wisconsin at earlier points in the game; it paid a price for its inefficiency against Ron Vander Kelen, Pat Richter, and the other great players on the 1962 Wisconsin team.

As the scene shifts to Saturday and the new “mountaintop” moment in the history of Wisconsin-Minnesota football, the Badgers and Gophers need to heed that advice: Be up by nine points, not two, so that if a bad call happens in the final minutes of the fourth quarter, it will have relevance only in relationship to Las Vegas… and not Pasadena.