Building A Rivalry: Wisconsin Football vs. Minnesota

“They better get season tickets right now because, before long, they probably won’t be able to.”

Barry Alvarez’s statement during his introductory 1990 press conference announcing him as the head football coach of the University of Wisconsin was viewed as either bold visionary or complete buffoonery. After all, UW was coming off five consecutive losing seasons, was a combined 6-27 in the three seasons under previous head coach Don Morton and was a program that had its fans giving away tickets to the 1989 season opener against No.3 Miami (spoiler, UW lost 51-3).

Many fans likely thought Alvarez was in over his head when the Badgers went 1-10 his first season, but the groundwork was being laid that season for what has been – for the most part – 30 years of success.

Starting with Alvarez’s 16 seasons (1990-2005) and extending to Bret Bielema’s seven years (‘06-‘12), Gary Andersen’s brief tenure (‘13-‘14) and, now, Paul Chryst (‘15-present), Wisconsin has been one of the more successful programs in the Big Ten. The program has won six conference championships, been to seven Rose Bowls and won 15 bowl games. Most importantly, the Badgers have either swung momentum in Big Ten series, completely dominating conference teams or closed the gap against some of the league’s heavyweights.

To understand how impressive Wisconsin’s run of success has been in the Big Ten, BadgerBlitz will examine UW’s series against 11 Big Ten opponents, looking at where it was and how it has evolved over four different Badgers coaches (Note: for this exercise, we are not including UW’s conference games against Maryland and Rutgers. The Badgers are 3-0 against each school and have outscored them a combined 137-71 in those six games).

Today, we examine UW’s series against the Minnesota Gophers.

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The longest-running rivalry in college football wasn’t always one. The Gophers won the first meeting, 63-0, in 1890, and the next three meetings by a combined score of 98-16. Wisconsin won six of the next seven, including four straight games by a combined 93-0 score, to tie the all-time series at six. It would be a long time before the Badgers got things back to even.

Minnesota spent the first half of the 20th century crushing the Badgers. From 1902-49, the Gophers went 31-11-5 and held the Badgers to seven points or less 31 times. The one highlight from that stretch was a 10-7 homecoming victory in 1917, the first game played at Camp Randall Stadium.

UW got its act together in the ‘50s (going 6-1-3), including the 1954 game in which Clarence Bratt set a Big Ten record with four interceptions and Alan Ameche was carried off the field after his final home game (he won the Heisman Trophy 10 days later), but the program had a subpar record in the ‘60s (4-6), ‘70s (5-5) and ‘80s (5-5).

Unlike some of Wisconsin’s games against other Big Ten opponents, Alvarez made things competitive with Minnesota quickly. UW won back-to-back games (’91-’92) in the series for the first time in nine years and then, after consecutive hiccups in ’93-’94, went on a six-game winning streak. That included the first overtime game in school history, a 20-17 victory in Minneapolis with Alvarez following the game from a hospital bed at the Mayo Clinic after knee surgery.

Alvarez left Bielema a two-game winning streak, thus beginning one of the most impressive streaks in school history. Bielema’s teams won all seven games in which he was the head coach, doing so by an average of 17.3 points.

Andersen was also up to the task, leading two top-16 teams to a 13-point and 10-point victory, the latter clinching UW’s spot in the Big Ten title game.

Chryst won his first three meetings, including in ’16 and ’17 when the Badgers were the fifth-ranked team in the country. That 31-0 victory in ’17 capped the first 12-0 regular season in school history, a school-record nine Big Ten wins, pushed its win streak to 14 over Minnesota and gave UW a 60-59-8 edge in the series, the first time UW ever led in the rivalry.

The streak ended with a 37-15 thud a year later (MN first win in the series since 2001 and first in Madison since 1994), but Wisconsin stormed back last year. In what was only the sixth meeting between the two in which both schools were ranked, and one of the biggest games in Minnesota school history, Jack Coan threw for two touchdown passes and Jonathan Taylor added three touchdowns as No.13 UW pummeled No.9 Minnesota, 38-17, in the snow to win the Big Ten West.

After winning the last two games in the series in Minneapolis, Minnesota appeared to poise to reclaim the axe after taking a 34-24 lead with 3:27 to play. That set off one of the wildest finishes in UW school history.

Quarterback John Stocco delivered a 21-yard touchdown pass to Brandon Williams, completing a 71-yard drive in just 1:17, and UW’s defense finally held against Laurence Maroney, who rushed for 258 of the Gophers’ 411 yards on the ground but couldn’t move the chains on third-and-3. The rest is legendary.

Minnesota punter Justin Kucek lined up to punt but dropped the snap. Instead of falling on the ball or throwing it out of the back of the end zone, which would have kept Minnesota in front, Kucek tried to get the punt off, but Jonathan Casillas raced through for the block. Ben Strickland then recovered it for the winning score with 30 seconds left, whipping the estimated 30,000 UW fans into a frenzy.

Minnesota's Jakari Wallace fumbled on the ensuing kickoff and DeAndre Levy recovered. The Badgers ran out the clock, touching off a wild celebration.

“I've been in some crazy shootouts, but never one like that,” Alvarez said. “This is as good of a win as I've had.”

UW would win the next 12 games in the series.

Meaningful wins were rare before the 90s, but Wisconsin did enjoy a few of them. The 11-7 victory in ’59 clinched the school’s seventh Big Ten title and a second trip to the Rose Bowl and the 14-9 win over No.5 Minnesota earned its eighth Big Ten title. The Gophers have steadily improved under the leadership of Jerry Kill, Tracy Claeys and P.J. Fleck, but the Badgers are still enjoying the important victories.

UW overcame a 17-3 second-quarter deficit to down No.22 Minnesota, 34-24, to secure the inaugural Big Ten West championship in 2014, erased a 17-7 deficit in 2016 thanks to four interceptions to secure another B1G West championship and enjoyed last year’s triumph.

While the games appear to be getting more competitive, the fact of the matter is that Wisconsin has won 22 of the last 25 meetings in the series and is showing no signs of slowing.

Wisconsin’s overall record vs Minnesota pre-Alvarez: 37-54-8

Wisconsin’s record vs. the Gophers since 1990: 24-6

The Alvarez Years: 11-5

The Bielema Years: 7-0

The Andersen Years: 2-0

The Chryst Years: 4-1