The Minnesota Golden Gophers will look to finish off the 2024 regular season on Friday afternoon with a rivalry win over the Wisconsin Badgers and take home Paul Bunyan's Axe to Minneapolis.

The Gophers (6-5, 4-4) enter this weekend on a two-game losing streak, losing to Rutgers and Penn State. Wisconsin (5-6,3-5) will look to break its skid of four games while aiming to achieve bowl eligibility for the 23rd straight season.

Entering Friday, the Badgers are a small home favorite with the spread currently at -1.5. It's a line that here at Gophers Nation, we do not agree with.

Entering Friday's contest, I think it is fair to say that Minnesota while not significantly better than Wisconsin, has been the better team. While the Gophers enter Saturday with a 6-5 record, one could argue they are just a handful of plays away from being an eight or nine-win team. The same cannot be said about Wisconsin.

The Badgers this season have wins over Western Michigan, a MAC program, South Dakota, an FCS program, Purdue, arguably the worst Power Four program in the country, and then Rutgers and Northwestern, both formidable opponents.

However, since those wins over Purdue, Rutgers, and Northwestern, the Badgers have played hard-nosed football but continuously find themselves on the losing end. They kept it close with Penn State but fell apart in the second half. Against Iowa, they were blown out 42-10 before almost upsetting the No.1 team in the country in Oregon one week later. Finally, last weekend, they fell to Nebraska 44-25 but had one of their best offensive outputs of the season.

I do wonder if there is a bit of an emotional and physical exhaustion for the Badgers entering this weekend and while they would love to play in a bowl game, will that exhaustion have an impact on Friday? Each of those four games was quite physical and Friday's game should continue that trend.

Offensively, I believe the two sides are quite similar but would give the edge to the Gophers due to having the better quarterback in Max Brosmer though Bradeyn Locke has looked better in recent weeks.

Locke, however, is a quarterback who will turnover the ball, he has 10 interceptions this season after only starting since week three. This makes Friday a poor matchup for the young quarterback when considering the Gophers are one of the best teams in the country this season in creating turnovers, especially interceptions, with 16 which is tied for sixth in the country.

That being said, I think this game will be run with the ground attacks, it's an area the Gophers can take major advantage of on Friday. Despite the Gophers' mediocre numbers when it comes to running the ball this season, averaging just 3.5 yards per carry.

This season, the Badgers have allowed 4.6 yards per carry and over 160 rushing yards per game. The only time they've kept an opposing rushing attack under 100 yards this season was the Purdue Boilermakers who finished that game with 99. Over the last four weeks, the Badgers' run defense has been terrible allowing 204.5 yards per game. Even when subtracting a 329-yard day from Iowa, the average is still 163 yards per contest. Notably when allowing over 130 rushing yards this season, the Badgers are 1-6.

When you look at the Gophers' defense when it comes to stopping the run, they've been great since allowing 150+ yards in three straight games earlier this season. After USC ran for 173 against the Gophers, the next highest rushing output by an opposition was just 126 yards. Last week against a good Penn State rushing attack, the Gophers kept the Nittany Lions to just 3.5 yards per carry. I think the Gophers will continue to play well against the run and it will go a long way towards a victory Friday.

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