The 2010s are about to end. There is only one more Big Ten football game to be played in this decade, and it will be played by the two best Big Ten programs in that decade. The Wisconsin Badgers and the Ohio State Buckeyes have made the most appearances in the Big Ten Championship Game since the event began in 2011. Wisconsin will make its sixth appearance in Indianapolis this weekend, Ohio State its fifth. As one decade ends and another one begins, one must ask: What are the biggest and most important questions surrounding Big Ten football this decade?
We will tackle this question more as this month of December continues at Badgers Wire, but for now, let’s acknowledge this point: The evolution of the Wisconsin-Minnesota rivalry is certainly one of the more fascinating and significant aspects of Big Ten football in the 2020s. That claim might not be greeted with universal agreement, but it is hard to displace from a top five list of important questions in the next decade of Big Ten football.
Consider, first, how stuck Nebraska currently is. The Huskers might get going eventually under Scott Frost, but it is just as evident that if Nebraska DOES improve, the process will not be immediate. Nebraska, at the end of the 2020 Big Ten season, will not be where Minnesota and P.J. Fleck are now… or at least, if the Cornhuskers do make that great leap, it will rate as one of the most remarkable turnarounds we have seen in the Big Ten. (Yes, more than Northwestern’s run to the division title last season.)
When Nebraska joined the Big Ten, many people in this conference wondered when the Cornhuskers would regain their top-tier status in college football. When the Big Ten moved from the Legends and Leaders divisional format to the East-West configuration we have now, Nebraska was the obvious team identified as a possible long-term challenger to Wisconsin in the West Division. It wasn’t Minnesota. It wasn’t Illinois, Northwestern or Purdue. Iowa was the only other program worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as Nebraska in terms of challenging the Badgers.
I think we can safely say that as the 2020s begin, Minnesota has replaced Nebraska in that conversation, with Iowa still being the only other West program which can credibly be seen as an annual threat to the Badgers and what they have maintained. That’s why Wisconsin-Minnesota is the hinge-point Big Ten West rivalry in the 2020s.
How these last two years — Minnesota ambushing one of Paul Chryst’s more mediocre teams in 2018, Chryst punching back in a higher-stakes battle in 2019 — shape this rivalry creates a juicy subtext to the 2020 season, the 2020 reunion between these teams, and this next series of years. If Fleck stays put in Minneapolis and doesn’t chase the big, shiny apple at Texas (if Tom Herman fails in 2020 and gets fired), the Badgers-Gophers rivalry, which was spiced up this past weekend, could grow in national importance in the coming decade. Wouldn’t that be something?