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The No. 12 (CFP) Wisconsin Badgers (9-2 overall, 6-2 B1G) are in Minneapolis and ready to do battle with the No. 8 Minnesota Golden Gophers (10-1 overall, 7-1 B1G) for the right to go to Indianapolis and represent the B1G West in the B1G Title Game. The winner also gets Paul Bunyan’s Axe and a year of lording their accomplishment over their neighbor.
The stakes haven’t been this high in an Axe game in years and years.
Minnesota’s only loss of the season came at Iowa, which is a place that just about every highly ranked team loses, and their only good win came against Penn State a few weeks ago. The rest of the Gophers schedule has been filled with games they won that they should’ve lost (early in the season) and games they won that they should have won (most of their B1G games tbqh).
Wisconsin lost Ohio State (duh) and Illinois (Jesus H. Christ) and have struggled to put lesser teams away over the last few weeks. The defense hasn’t been tackling well and doing that against Minnesota is a recipe for disaster.
The College GameDay crew is in the Twin Cities and the Gophers couldn’t be more excited about the game. Minnesota basically had the season that people (read: idiots) thought Nebraska was going to have. Wisconsin will have to weather the early storm of emotion and try not to let the moment get the best of them.
Here are the staff predictions for the game:
Bob: 28-21, Minnesota
Ryan: 31-27, Wisconsin
Tyler: 27-21, Wisconsin
Owen: 34-21, Wisconsin
Belz: 31-30, Wisconsin, “but I could see it going either way”
Neal: 30-24, Wisconsin
Rock: 38-20, Wisconsin
Drew: 31-30, Wisconsin (I SAID IT ALREADY IN A PREVIEW, I DIDN’T COPY BELZ!)
Kevin: 28-24, Wisconsin
Just about everyone still has the Badgers winning despite being on the road against a higher ranked team that beat Wisconsin soundly last year. Bob is slowly coming around and may only have the Badgers losing by a field goal by kickoff.
What are your predictions for the game? Do the Badgers win? Who is the difference maker? Is Jonathan Taylor able to get 200 yards on the ground for the fourth straight game? Can Jack Coan turn it over more than Alex Hornibrook did last year? THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS!