Wisconsin Badgers
MADISON, WI (WSAU) — The Wisconsin football team will get its date with Minnesota after all.
Big Ten Conference officials announced the Championship Weekend schedule Sunday afternoon for the 12 schools not participating in the Championship Game presented by Discover in Indianapolis. That includes a makeup of the Battle for Paul Bunyan’s Axe between the Badgers and Minnesota, to take place at Camp Randall Stadium Saturday at 3 PM.
Pregame coverage on WSAU will begin at 1 PM. The announcement preserves the long-standing rivalry between the two schools that dates back to the 1800s and has been played continuously each year since 1907.
The Badgers and Gophers were originally scheduled to play on November 28th but the game was called off due to a COVID-19 outbreak within the Gopher program. Minnesota played last week’s game against Nebraska with several scholarship players out due to the virus as well.
Other Big Ten Championship Weekend games include Nebraska at Rutgers, Purdue at Indiana, Illinois against Penn State, Michigan at Iowa, and Michigan State against Maryland. The Conference title game matches Northwestern against Ohio State.
It remains unclear at this point if the Badgers will be selected for a bowl game. As of Sunday, there are 34 bowls scheduled including the CFP Championship. Two games have one school lined up to play, six other games have their matchups set. Additionally, four schools (Stanford, Virginia, Boston College, and the University of Pittsburgh) have announced that they will not accept invitations to a bowl game this year.
Schools that have accepted bowl bids currently play in the Mountain West, American, Sun Belt, and Conference-USA. Army accepted an invitation to the Independence Bowl nearly two months ago.
The NCAA threw out the win-percentage requirements for the 2020 Bowl Season back in August, making every team that played at least one game this season eligible for selection.
Meanwhile, the Men’s Basketball team has called yet another scheduling audible after Northern Iowa canceled their remaining non-conference games. That costs the Badgers a December 16th date with the Panthers.
Instead, Wisconsin has scheduled the Ramblers of Loyola-Chicago on Tuesday, December 15th. Tip time at the Kohl Center is scheduled for 7 PM, pregame coverage on WSAU will begin at 6 PM.
Tuesday’s game will be the last scheduled non-conference affair for the Badgers. Wisconsin was scheduled to play Louisville in the B1G/ACC Challenge, but that game was postponed due to COVID cases within the Cardinals program. The two schools are reportedly working to reschedule that game for later in the season, but no date has been announced.
Comments