The Gophers vs. Badgers football rivalry is filled with enough tradition and controversy that more than 120 years after the third meeting between the teams, Minnesota gained a victory in the all-time series.

The teams first met in 1890 (a 63-0 Gophers victory). In 1892, the recorded score (in both the Minnesota and Wisconsin media guides) in the game between the teams, for many years, was listed as 40-32 in favor of Wisconsin. This past summer, though, a diligent Gophers fan unearthed a game report that proved the actual score was 32-4 in favor of the Gophers — and that the wrong score was a typo passed down for decades.

Members of both the Minnesota and Wisconsin athletics departments agreed the facts showed the Gophers really did win, and now history has been rewritten.

This is somewhat important, as the two teams prepare to meet Saturday, for a couple of reasons — one real and one amusing. The real reason is that the all-time series record, adjusted correctly for that 1892 score, now shows Minnesota is ahead with 59 wins to 56 losses and eight ties. Without that clarification, it would be 58-57-9 and Wisconsin could have tied the all-time series with a win Saturday.

The amusing reason is that even though Wisconsin has won 10 consecutive meetings between the teams from 2004-13, the Gophers have actually recorded the most recent "win" in the series thanks to that 1892 correction.

That said, it has been a very long time since these two teams met in a game with so much on the line. In fact, one has to go back more than half a century, to 1962, to find a time where the Gophers and Badgers met with a Big Ten title on the line, as will happen Saturday when the winner will take the Big Ten West crown.

In that 1962 game, the Gophers were aiming for their third consecutive Rose Bowl bid. The game was in Madison, and Minnesota held a late lead. The Gophers thought they had sewn up the victory with an interception, but on the play Bobby Bell was called for roughing the passer. Coach Murray Warmath got an unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty for arguing on top of it.

"He threw his hat down or stomped on the sideline and got another penalty," Pat Richter, a senior on that Badgers team and Wisconsin's athletic director from 1989 through 2004, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this week. "It seemed like there were 30 yards of penalties on the play and we ended up scoring."

Indeed, the Badgers took a 14-9 lead and won by that score. The Star Tribune's Patrick Reusse argues that game was the beginning of Minnesotans' suspicion/belief that referees are out to get the local teams.

Since that game, there have been various seasons when the Gophers were bad, the Badgers were bad, or both. There have surely been egregious refereeing calls both ways. But never since have the teams meet with so much at stake.

The Badgers will be trying to make it 11 in a row. The Gophers, in a way, will be trying to make it two in a row. And the winner will face Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship Game.

michael rand