MADISON, WIS. – The joyful hooting and hollering coming from the visitors’ locker room at Camp Randall Stadium was familiar. Gophers football players were singing a rapid version of the “Minnesota Rouser” and savoring their work from the previous 3 hours and 16 minutes on Barry Alvarez Field.
Gophers roll to 24-7 victory at Wisconsin, reclaiming Paul Bunyan’s Axe
Minnesota built a 21-0 lead and held off a brief surge by the Badgers to finish the regular season at 7-5. Wisconsin fell to 5-7, ending its 22-year streak of gaining bowl eligibility.
Still, something was missing. There wasn’t the overwhelming smell of Axe body spray, with which the Gophers doused themselves and the locker room after their 2018 victory over Wisconsin. Nor was there the overpowering odor of cigar smoke, their celebratory prop of choice after their 2022 triumph over the Badgers.
Instead, there was just a hint of a cigar or two on Friday afternoon after the Gophers efficiently bludgeoned Wisconsin 24-7 in front 76,059. By pitching a first-half shutout and owning most of the key moments in the final 30 minutes, the Gophers won Paul Bunyan’s Axe in Madison for the third time since P.J. Fleck became the team’s coach in 2017. They’ve won the axe the past two times at Camp Randall and four times overall under Fleck, so maybe the celebrations, while just as fun, are a bit less boisterous.
“I thought our players dominated the football game; I thought they did from start to finish,” said Fleck, who turned 44 on Friday. “There’s four or five plays we want back where I think it could even be more lopsided. We made a statement in the rivalry, winning three out of four here at Camp Randall.”
Indeed, they did, outgaining Wisconsin 374 yards to 166, holding the Badgers to an average of 1.5 yards on their 24 rushes and forcing the hosts to punt on their first six possessions.
“This is the game you play for in Minnesota,” Gophers senior cornerback Justin Walley said. “It’s the most important game on the schedule. … To go out with a win like that is the most perfect outcome I can really think of.”
With the win, the Gophers finished the regular season with a 7-5 overall record and a 5-4 Big Ten mark. Wisconsin fell to 5-7 and 3-6, ending its 22-year streak of reaching bowl eligibility with six wins. The Badgers’ season is over, unless they get in via their high academic progress rating and the slight possibility of too few six-win teams to fill the bowls.
The Gophers won Friday behind the passing of Max Brosmer, who completed 17 of 26 passes for 191 yards, finding Daniel Jackson six times for 61 yards and a TD and Elijah Spencer five times for 75 yards. Darius Taylor rushed 32 times for 144 yards, tight end Jameson Geers caught a 15-yard touchdown pass and kicker Dragan Kesich sealed the win with a 43-yard field goal in the fourth quarter.
Minnesota’s defense limited Badgers quarterback Braedyn Locke to 15-for-32 passing for 130 yards and a TD.
On a day with the game-time temperature at 22 degrees and a steady west wind of 17 mph, whichever team imposed its will on the other figured to win the game. That was the Gophers, with Fleck telling his players, “In a game where it’s zero degrees, those hits both ways are going to sting. We just wanted to be on the plus side of those stinging.”
Senior offensive lineman Quinn Carroll concurred.
“With cold games like this, it definitely hurts less if you’re the one delivering the blow, being the hammer, not the nail.”
That was evident in how the Gophers scored their three touchdowns on drives covering 89, 75 and 83 yards.
On the first one, Brosmer hit Jackson for a 37-yard gain and Spencer for 21 yards to the Wisconsin 1-yard line. Two plays later, Brosmer scored on a sneak in the tush-push formation with 3:04 left in the first quarter.
Minnesota stretched the lead to 14-0 on Brosmer’s 7-yard TD pass to Jackson with 11:21 left in the second quarter. The play that set up the TD, however, was especially impressive.
Facing third-and-1 from their 34 in the second quarter, the Gophers lined up in the tush-push, but instead of sneaking it, Brosmer handed off to running back Marcus Major on a counter. Major swept left and rambled 40 yards to the Badgers 26, with tight end Nick Kallerup throwing a key block while escorting him down the field.
“We’ve got a bunch of stuff out of that formation,” said Fleck, whose team got a TD pass from Brosmer to Geers earlier this season against Illinois.
Geers would get a TD the conventional way in the third quarter, making a leaping catch for a 15-yard TD and 21-0 lead.
Wisconsin ended the shutout when Locke found Vinny Anthony II for a 15-yard TD with 3:03 left in the third quarter. On the drive, the Gophers appeared to have the Badgers stopped for no gain on third-and-15 from the Minnesota 45, but Gophers linebacker Joey Gerlach took a personal foul penalty for a late hit on running back Tawee Walker out of bounds.
The Badgers made it interesting on their next possession by reaching the Gophers 10 before a holding call and Nathanial Vakos’ missed 37-yard field-goal attempt torpedoed the threat.
After that, the Badgers fans who hadn’t left at halftime began to file out, and the Gophers counted down the time before they could seize the axe and figuratively chop down both goalposts.
Fleck joined in on the revelry, then looked forward to the trip home back to Minnesota with the trophy.
“We’ve got a good four-, four-and-a-half-hour bus ride with that axe right there in the aisle,” he said. “It’s gonna be great.”
The Gophers have been inviting danger, falling behind early, so that will be a point of emphasis during a showdown series against the Wolverines.