Gophers

Michigan has owned the Little Brown Jug. Minnesota will get fewer cracks at it in the bigger Big Ten

October 5, 2023 / 11:08 PM CDT / AP

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The Little Brown Jug is one of the oldest trophies in college football, that classic earthenware Michigan and Minnesota have played for since well before helmets were required on the field.

In this increasingly crowded Big Ten, the gaps between games are only going to grow.

Though Michigan's dominance in the series with Minnesota has stretched into a sixth decade and both teams have two other rivalries that are much fiercer, the jug is another piece of the rich history of the sport being the pushed to the background by the broadcast-driven expansion and realignment of the major conferences. The two schools have formally contested the trophy since 1909.

When the second-ranked Wolverines (5-0, 2-0) play the Gophers (3-2, 1-1) on Saturday night, they'll make just their fourth appearance at Huntington Bank Stadium that opened on Minnesota's campus 14 years ago. One of those visits was without fans during the pandemic in 2020.

"When people get really angry about those rivalries should be protected every single year," Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck said, "just think outside the box. They'll still be there. It just makes the game even more important, if it comes around maybe once every four or five years."

Michigan leads the all-time series 76-25-3, with 42 wins in the last 46 matchups. Minnesota won at Michigan Stadium in 2014, 2005 and 1986, when the Wolverines were also ranked No. 2 and quarterbacked by current head coach Jim Harbaugh. The last time the Gophers triumphantly hoisted the jug on their home field was in 1977, when Fleck wasn't even born.

When Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington join next season, the Big Ten will have 18 teams and still only nine conference games. The richest rivalries have been protected, with Michigan playing Michigan State and Ohio State each year, and Minnesota annually facing Iowa and Wisconsin, but that next tier of classic matchups will simply be placed in the hopper with all the rest. Each team is guaranteed to host every other Big Ten team at least once in a five-year span.

In the rotations released Thursday by the conference, the Wolverines will host the Gophers in 2024 and return to Minnesota in 2026.

For now, a Michigan team favored by 18½ points according to FanDuel Sportsbook odds will try to keep the College Football Playoff train moving after winning 45-7 at Nebraska last week for a 17th consecutive Big Ten win. That's the second-longest streak in program history.

"They're one of the deepest, for sure," Fleck said. "It doesn't matter who is in that football game. It just seems like they're always fresh because they have so many great players and they do such a good job of rotating them."

CLEAN GAME

Michigan has been penalized just 2.6 times per game and Minnesota is averaging 2.8 flags per game, trailing only Army — naturally, the most disciplined team — in the FBS. The Wolverines were not called for one penalty last week, a first for them in the 21st century.

"There's a few penalties that weren't called maybe both ways, but officials were letting the guys play," Harbaugh said.

BROTHERLY LOVE

Gophers defensive end Danny Striggow, who leads the team and is tied for the Big Ten lead with three sacks, has an older brother, Bobby, who's a wrestler for Michigan. Another older brother, Jackson, wrestled for the Wolverines, too.

"They are Gopher fans for this week," said Striggow, who played at Orono High School in the Minneapolis area. "They are always obviously Gopher football fans, but they are Michigan football fans every other week of the year, until it's Gophers versus Wolverines. Then they are 100% Gopher fans."

BY THE NUMBERS

Michigan's Blake Corum leads the FBS with nine rushing touchdowns. Roman Wilson has eight receiving touchdowns, also the most by a player at college football's highest level. The Wolverines are also allowing an FBS-low six points per game and have not surrendered more than a touchdown in any game against their lackluster competition.

FOUR IN A ROW

Minnesota running back Darius Taylor won three straight Big Ten Freshman of the Week awards. Then while he was out with an injury for the homecoming win over Louisiana, Zach Evans took over as the featured ball carrier for Taylor and kept the freshman award streak going for the Gophers.

Leaning on the ground game, even against a Wolverines defense that ranks 13th in the FBS with an average of 85.2 rushing yards allowed per game, will be the way to go for the Gophers. Taylor leads the Big Ten with 532 rushing yards despite playing sparingly in the opener and being sidelined last week.

"It's an emotional, fired-up type of team," Harbaugh said. "P.J. does a great job. You can always tell they're confident no matter what the stakes are, the odds are."