Luke Fickell leaned hard into the Wisconsin-Minnesota football rivalry, and you hardly could blame him.
“It comes down for a battle for an axe, and anyone who can’t get up for that doesn’t belong in either one of these places,” Fickell said Monday in the leadup to Friday’s 11 a.m. regular-season finale at Camp Randall Stadium, where Paul Bunyan’s Axe will become property of the victor.
Fickell’s Badgers enter the game with a 5-6 overall record, needing to beat the Gophers to achieve bowl eligibility. They’ve had four cracks at that sixth win, falling to Penn State, Iowa, Oregon and, last week, Nebraska, losing 44-25 to the Cornhuskers.
There’s a sense of urgency this week for Wisconsin. The Badgers went 7-6 in Fickell’s debut last year, a record that’s not tolerated often in Madison. He has already fired offensive coordinator Phil Longo because the “Dairy Raid” offensive approach hasn’t been a great fit, and even Barry Alvarez, the Godfather of Badgers football, recently questioned whether the team had an identity.
Fickell’s seat might not be hot yet, but it’s warming. Remember, his predecessor, Paul Chryst, had four seasons of double-digit wins in his first seven years at Wisconsin yet was fired after a 2-3 start in 2022.
A victory over the Gophers would at least temporarily dial down the heat.
“In rivalry games, you throw records out the window and sometimes even home-field advantage out the window,” Fickell said. “It comes down to who wants it more.”
The Gophers also have ample reasons to want it more. After a four-game winning streak moved them to 6-3, they’ve lost back-to-back games to Rutgers and No. 4 Penn State. They would like to boost their bowl destination by improving to 7-5, and they also want to avoid a late-season collapse like last year’s 0-4 November for a 5-7 regular season. In addition, a Gophers victory would deny the Badgers a bowl bid, inflicting some mental anguish on their bitter rival.
