The Minnesota Golden Gophers football team represents the University of Minnesota in college football at the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision level. Founded in 1882, Minnesota has been a member of the Big Ten Conference since its inception in 1896 as the Western Conference. The Golden Gophers claim seven national championships, including four (1936, 1940, 1941, and 1960) from the major wire-services: AP Poll and/or Coaches' Poll.
Since 2009, the Golden Gophers have played all their home games at Huntington Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The team is currently coached by P. J. Fleck.
History
The Minnesota Gophers college football team played its first game on September 29, 1882, a 4–0 victory over Hamline University. Eight years later in 1890, the Gophers played host to Wisconsin in a 63–0 victory. With the exception of 1906, the Gophers and Badgers have played each other every year since then. The 132 games played against each other is the most played rivalry in Division I-A college football.
Early years
The sport's beginnings were humble. Students began gathering to play the game recreationally and its popularity grew.
Once the sport had taken off, it was only a matter of time before a team was formed to play against other schools. Early teams were very loosely organized, not requiring all of the players to be students and not having designated coaches. The players on the team started to recruit faculty members who had played football at schools in the East to help organize the team. The team gained their first coach in 1883: Thomas Peebles, a philosophy professor who also recruited a cheer team for the football players, which later established him as the father of American cheerleading. Like many of the early coaches, his term lasted just one year.
Some years, the football team played without a coach. Other years, they played with multiple coaches. In total, from 1882 through 1899, the team played 16 seasons of football and had 15 different coaches. As the years went by, the leadership structure started to become more formal. In 1900, the hiring of Dr. Henry L. Williams, the school's first full-time salaried coach, signaled the end of the early, chaotic days.
Glory years
The Gophers enjoyed quite a bit of success in the early 20th century, posting winning records from 1900 to 1919. Head coach Henry L. Williams developed the "Minnesota shift", a predecessor to later quick line shifts, which was adopted widely.Mary Mapes Dodge, St. Nicholas: A Monthly Magazine for Boys and Girls, Volume 42, Part 1, p. 43, 1915. Also Henry L. Williams led Minnesota to one of the NCAA's longest unbeaten streaks of 35 games, from 1903 to 1905 with 34 wins and 1 tie.http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/footba...s/2011/FBS.pdf – pp. 70–79 In 1932, Bernie Bierman became the Gophers' head coach and led the Gophers to their first dynasty. From 1934 to 1936 the Gophers went on a run of winning three straight National Championships, the last Division I team to accomplish this feat. During the run, Minnesota went unbeaten in 28 straight games, 21 of which were consecutive victories. The school record for consecutive victories is 24, which spanned 3 seasons from 1903 to 1905. Led by halfback Bruce Smith, the Gophers also won two more national championships in 1940 and 1941, with Smith winning the Heisman Trophy in 1941. Those two seasons comprised most of an 18-game winning streak that stretched from 1939 to 1942.
Fall from power In the seasons immediately following the end of World War II, Bernie Bierman did not adopt the 2 most important innovations in on-field strategy: substituting the 60-minute player for two-platoon of offensive-only and defensive-only players, and the split-T offensive formation. Instead, Bierman continued to use two-way players and the single-wing formation.
Off the field, Bierman had to contend with the most conservative administration in the Big Ten. President James Morrill's public and private advocacy for the less-professional rules of the pre-World War II era led Minnesota to become the only Big Ten school to vote against the 3 most consequential conference decisions in the immediate post-war years: the legalization of athletic scholarships in 1949, and the 1946 and 1950 Rose Bowl deals.
Return to prominence After some mediocre seasons throughout the remainder of the 1940s and 1950s, the Gophers rose back to prominence in 1960 with their seventh national championship (because polling ended after the regular season, the Gophers were crowned AP and UPI national champions despite losing the Rose Bowl to Washington). That national championship followed a 1–8 record in 1958 and 2–7 record in 1959. Minnesota played in bowl games the two following years as well, in 1961 and 1962. The Gophers earned their first berth in the Rose Bowl by winning the 1960 Big Ten title. The following year, Minnesota returned to Pasadena despite a second-place finish in the conference. The Ohio State Buckeyes, the Big Ten champions in 1961, declined an invitation to the Rose Bowl because of tension between academics and athletics at the school. Minnesota beat UCLA 21–3 to claim its first and only Rose Bowl victory. Minnesota's last Big Ten title was in 1967, tying the Indiana Hoosiers and Purdue Boilermakers atop the standings.
Recent history
After their 8–2 record in 1967, the Gophers did not win 8 games in a season again until they finished 8–4 in 1999.Gophers football history ericthrall.com Their 10–3 record in 2003 gave the Gophers their first 10 win season since 1905.
The 2006 team had the dubious distinction of blowing a 38–7 third-quarter lead in the Insight Bowl against Texas Tech, losing 44–41 in overtime. The collapse, which was the biggest in the history of Division I-A postseason football, directly led to the firing of head coach Glen Mason. On January 17, 2007, Tim Brewster was officially announced as the next head coach of the Minnesota Golden Gophers.Jeff Shelman, New U coach: Rose Bowl is the goal , Star Tribune, January 17, 2007
In 1981, the Gophers played their last game in Memorial Stadium and played their home games in the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome until 2008. The Gophers moved back to campus with a 20–13 win against Air Force on September 12, 2009, when their new home, TCF Bank Stadium, opened.
In 2010, after a 1–6 record to start the season, the Gophers football head coach Tim Brewster was fired. Jeff Horton served as the interim head coach going 2–3. On December 6, 2010, Jerry Kill, former Northern Illinois University head coach, was hired to take over the University of Minnesota football program.
In 2014, The Gophers reached an 8–4 record while going 5–3 in Big Ten games, falling just short of making the Big Ten Championship Game by losing to The Wisconsin Badgers in the season finale. After being revitalized in the Big Ten contention, The Gophers were awarded an appearance in the Citrus Bowl on January 1 against Missouri.
In 2017, former Western Michigan Broncos coach P. J. Fleck was hired to take over from Tracy Claeys, who coached the Gophers from 2015 to 2016. Fleck led the Broncos to a 13–1 season in 2016 that resulted in a Cotton Bowl appearance against Wisconsin
In 2018, the Gophers defeated the Badgers to reclaim Paul Bunyan's Axe and end a 14-season losing streak.
In 2019, the Gophers turned in a historic season, going 11–2 (7–2 in conference play) including a home victory against No. 4 Penn State 31-26, their first victory over a top 5 team in 20 years. The win also marked the first time since 1904 that the Gophers started out a season 9-0.
Conference affiliations Independent (1882–1891) Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the Northwest (1892–1893) Independent (1894–1895) Big Ten Conference (1896–present) Western Conference (1896–1952) Big Ten Conference (1953–present)
All-time Big Ten records Team Won Lost Tied Pct. Streak First meeting Last meeting Chicago Maroons 12 5 1 Won 7 1895 1934 Illinois Fighting Illini 41 33 3 Won 1 1898 2024 Indiana Hoosiers 40 26 3 Won 4 1906 2021 Iowa Hawkeyes 63 52 2 Lost 1 1891 2024 Maryland Terrapins 4 4 0 Won 2 1977 2024 Michigan Wolverines 25 77 3 Lost 4 1891 2023 Michigan State Spartans 19 30 0 Won 2 1950 2023 Nebraska Cornhuskers 37 25 2 .578 Won 5 1900 2023 Northwestern Wildcats 55 37 5 Lost 1 1892 2023 Ohio State Buckeyes 7 47 0 Lost 12 1921 2023 Penn State Nittany Lions 6 10 0 Lost 1 1993 2022 Purdue Boilermakers 41 35 3 Won 1 1894 2023 Rutgers Scarlet Knights 4 1 0 Won 1 2016 2025 Wisconsin Badgers 64 63 8 Won 2 1890 2025
Championships
National championships
Minnesota has been selected nine times as national champions from NCAA-designated major selectors, including four (1936, 1940, 1941, and 1960) from the major wire-service: AP Poll and/or Coaches' Poll. Minnesota claims seven (1904, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1940, 1941, and 1960) of these championships.
1904 Billingsley 13–0 – – 1934 Bernie Bierman Billingsley, Boand, Dickinson, Football Research, Helms, Litkenhous, National Championship Foundation, Sagarin, Sagarin (ELO-Chess) 8–0 – – 1935 Bernie Bierman Billingsley, Boand, Football Research, Helms, Litkenhous, National Championship Foundation, Poling 8–0 – – 1936 Bernie Bierman AP, Billingsley, Dickinson, Dunkel, Helms, Litkenhous, National Championship Foundation, Poling 7–1 No. 1 – 1940 Bernie Bierman AP, Berryman, Boand, DeVold, Dickinson, Football Research, Houlgate, Litkenhous, National Championship Foundation, Sagarin, Sagarin (ELO-Chess) 8–0 No. 1 – 1941 Bernie Bierman AP, Billingsley, Boand, DeVold, Dunkel, Football Research, Helms, Litkenhous, National Championship Foundation, Poling, Sagarin, Sagarin (ELO-Chess) 8–0 No. 1 – 1960 Murray Warmath AP, FB News, NFF, UPI 8–2 Rose No. 1 No. 1
Toledo Cup
The Gophers were the inaugural winners of the Toledo Cup national championship trophy in 1934 and repeated the feat in 1935 and 1936. The poll's rules stated the traveling trophy would be retained permanently by the first team to win it three times; Bernie Bierman's teams completed the three-peat without any other team winning the cup. The Toledo Cup is currently displayed in the lobby of the Gibson-Nagurski Athletic Center at the University of Minnesota.
Rockne Memorial Trophy
Minnesota won Dickinson System national championships in 1934, 1936, and 1940. The three wins gave them permanent possession of the Knute Rockne Memorial Trophy, which had been introduced in 1931. Following tradition, the university set their own new trophy into play and named it for former football coach Henry L. Williams.
With professor Frank Dickinson retiring from the ratings business, the new Williams Trophy was instead linked to the nascent AP Poll and served as the first AP Trophy.
Conference championships Minnesota has won 18 conference championships, 11 shared and 7 outright.
1892 No coach Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the Northwest 5–0 3–0 1893 Wallace Winter Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the Northwest 6–0 3–0 1900† Henry L. Williams Western Conference 10–0–2 3–0–1 1903† Henry L. Williams Western Conference 14–0–1 3–0–1 1904† Henry L. Williams Western Conference 13–0 3–0 1906† Henry L. Williams Western Conference 4–1 2–0 1909 Henry L. Williams Western Conference 6–1 3–0 1910† Henry L. Williams Western Conference 6–1 2–0 1911 Henry L. Williams Western Conference 6–0–1 3–0–1 1915† Henry L. Williams Western Conference 6–0–1 3–0–1 1927† Clarence Spears Big Ten Conference 6–0–2 3–0–1 1933† Bernie Bierman Big Ten Conference 4–0–4 2–0–4 1934 Bernie Bierman Big Ten Conference 8–0 5–0 1935† Bernie Bierman Big Ten Conference 8–0 5–0 1937 Bernie Bierman Big Ten Conference 6–2 5–0 1938 Bernie Bierman Big Ten Conference 6–2 4–1 1940 Bernie Bierman Big Ten Conference 8–0 6–0 1941 Bernie Bierman Big Ten Conference 8–0 5–0 1960† Murray Warmath Big Ten Conference 8–2 6–1 1967† Murray Warmath Big Ten Conference 8–2 6–1 † Co-champions
Division championships