Life is good for the Minnesota Golden Gopher football team as they’ve re-entered the top 10 in the AP Top 25 poll. What’s even more surreal for Gopher fans is that Minnesota is actually beginning to be treated like a top 10 program.
As the Gophers checked in at ninth in the latest installment of the poll that dropped on Sunday, it came off the heels of an announcement that ESPN “College GameDay” is coming to Minnesota for the first time in the show’s history for their matchup with Wisconsin.
That excitement has spread to the fan base as the university also announced that the game against the Badgers has sold out, meaning it should be another raucous crowd at TCF Bank Stadium in their first home game since taking down Penn State, who at the time was ranked fourth in the country, on Nov. 9.
While the stands were filled with maroon, a possible question could be which color will dominate for the battle for Paul Bunyan’s Axe. In recent years, a throng of Badger fans have made the trip across the Mississippi for the big game, which spawned a 14-year drought for the Gophers until they earned a victory in Madison last season.
With everything on the line come Saturday, the Gophers will be looking to make a statement and with a win, they will wrap up the Big Ten West division title and potentially clinch their first trip to the Rose Bowl since 1962.
