Gophers vs. Wisconsin 1892

I've presented this evidence so far in email form to two different addresses at the U from the Athletic Department's contact information and I've also sent it to the author of that article who still appears to be working for the Wisconsin Athletic Department, so we'll see if any of those emails produce responses.
 

I've presented this evidence so far in email form to two different addresses at the U from the Athletic Department's contact information and I've also sent it to the author of that article who still appears to be working for the Wisconsin Athletic Department, so we'll see if any of those emails produce responses.

Good work. Keep us updated.
 

Hmmmmm.... Rules have changed a lot in 120 years. How does one score 4 points off of a fumbled punt?

I guess I should brush up on my football history.

Sent from my MUCH i5 using Tapatalk

Back then touchdowns were worth 4 points.
 

You can spell Ax/Axe either way. If you include the slab of bacon we lead in total games won

Wrong again. If you include the 14 slab of bacon years (Minnesota leads 11-3), the Badgers still hold the edge, 42-35-3.

Also, in context of the football trophy it's officially "Axe". If you find some official entity that spells it "ax", I'll eat my words. But I'm not holding my breath.

BTW, Gophers win in 1892.
 



From "History of Minnesota Football", published in 1928. Here's a link to download the PDF file. http://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/123128

Although this was published 36 years after the game, the description of the game gives overwhelming evidence that Minnesota won the game. Are there no such history books of the early days of Wisconsin football? We have this 1928 book, the 1914 book which was referenced earlier, and I believe there is a book published in 1904, but I haven't been able to find a copy. I think the Badger fans researching this only wanted to look for what confirmed their view. An 1894 yearbook may have had Wisconsin winning, but what about the 1893 yearbook or the 1895 yearbook?

Here's the description of the game from the 1928 book:

Minnesota 32, Wisconsin 4 The 1892 game with Wisconsin was played at Madison, on the 29th of October. It was only a fumble of punt behind Minnesota's goal line that gave Wisconsin an opportunity to save herself from a shut-out. The Minnesota team played a magnificent game, and carried everything before it. Leary was unable to play on account of an injured knee, and Patterson was in charge.

Early in the game the ball changed hands number of times until Minnesota struck her pace, and then it was a mad rush for the Wisconsin goal: Harding, Patterson and Pillsbury vied with each other in advancing the ball for Minnesota. At the end of the first half the score stood 8 to 4 for Minnesota, Wisconsin's score coming early in the game on a fumble of a long punt.

In the second half Wisconsin started out with a rush, but soon lost the ball. Minnesota made two good runs and one rush, and carried the ball across the Wisconsin goal for a touchdown. Wisconsin neither gained through the line nor around the ends. Minnesota's progress was a series of runs and rushes with an occasional punt. The game was characterized by unusually fine interference, and powerful rushes, with the whole team in every play. Harding did wonderful work in the line and in advancing the ball. There was no haggling over decisions, and the Wisconsin men played up to their limit all of the time.

The Minnesota line-up was as follows: Madigan, center; Harding, captain and right guard; Larson, left guard; Sikes, right tackle; A. Larson, left tackle; Dalrymple, right end; Bisbee, left end; Pillsbury, quarterback; White and Patterson, halfbacks; Folwell, fullback.
 

I didn't think Wisconsin had developed the ability to write until 1904? Maybe they can find some hieroglyphics describing the game.

Don't be silly, this mystery will never be solved using Wisconsin-based records. Nothing even remotely connected with Wisconsin football began until 1993, including record keeping, game recaps, photos, fan attendance or participation. Everyone knows that.
 


Case closed. We need the U acknowledge this, and ideally to get the Wisconsin author to issue a retraction. You should go ahead and update your Gopher history page.

Yes, I'm already planning to make the update (including changing the location of the game which I have currently listed as being at home rather than in Madison) regardless of what I get in response to my emails but I was at the basketball game last night and have plans with friends tonight, so I won't get a chance to make the changes until this weekend.
 



I updated the Wikipedia article for the 1892 Wisconsin season, and added a citation to the Milwaukee Journal article. I also added the reference in the Minnesota article as well. Now we need to make sure the media guide gets updated.

It is interesting reading about Gopher football from that era. This sort of made that game come alive from well over a century ago.
 

I updated the Wikipedia article for the 1892 Wisconsin season, and added a citation to the Milwaukee Journal article. I also added the reference in the Minnesota article as well. Now we need to make sure the media guide gets updated.

It is interesting reading about Gopher football from that era. This sort of made that game come alive from well over a century ago.

Did you edit the rivalry page, too?
 

Did you edit the rivalry page, too?

Not yet. They are using the data from the College Football Data Warehouse, and that shows a Wisconsin win. I emailed the person in charge of that site, and provided him with the links to the two newspapers.

This just shows what kind of mess you get when people don't check facts. It's more work to clean up errors than to avoid the error in the first place. A 1901 document and an 1894 yearbook showing a Wisconsin win are enough to merit further research, but not enough to reach a conclusion. All that it took was looking up newspaper articles to confirm that the 32-4 Minnesota win was correct all along.

While the original researchers should have done a much more thorough job, the U shouldn't have accepted such such flimsy evidence. Hands up anyone who thinks the Badgers would have accepted such flimsy evidence if the U had offered it? This isn't an issue of dire importance, but perhaps it shows that maybe the U could stand to be a little less credulous. It doesn't do to have the U be so readily accommodating to Wisconsin. "Trust but verify".
 

Not yet. They are using the data from the College Football Data Warehouse, and that shows a Wisconsin win. I emailed the person in charge of that site, and provided him with the links to the two newspapers.

This just shows what kind of mess you get when people don't check facts. It's more work to clean up errors than to avoid the error in the first place. A 1901 document and an 1894 yearbook showing a Wisconsin win are enough to merit further research, but not enough to reach a conclusion. All that it took was looking up newspaper articles to confirm that the 32-4 Minnesota win was correct all along.

While the original researchers should have done a much more thorough job, the U shouldn't have accepted such such flimsy evidence. Hands up anyone who thinks the Badgers would have accepted such flimsy evidence if the U had offered it? This isn't an issue of dire importance, but perhaps it shows that maybe the U could stand to be a little less credulous. It doesn't do to have the U be so readily accommodating to Wisconsin. "Trust but verify".

So, Captain Accuracy, when are you going to correct your tag line?
 




I updated the Wikipedia article for the 1892 Wisconsin season, and added a citation to the Milwaukee Journal article. I also added the reference in the Minnesota article as well. Now we need to make sure the media guide gets updated.

It is interesting reading about Gopher football from that era. This sort of made that game come alive from well over a century ago.

I'm an idiot for not doing this immediately when I first posted the two wikipedia links.... :clap:
 

I'm an idiot for not doing this immediately when I first posted the two wikipedia links.... :clap:

Until we had the link to the newspaper articles from 1892, we didn't have enough information to back it up. Someone would simply have reverted it, after all, the article did have a link supporting the Wisconsin win. Once we had the newspaper link, that was superior evidence.
 

Did anyone just simply ask Sid? He was probably there. :)
 

All right, my site has been updated now with this result. Another thing I need to fix on my site is that, in 1892 and 1893, the Gophers were in a conference called the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the Northwest and they were the champions for both years of its existence.

One thing to note - if the 1892 result really had been a Badger win, they would have been co-champions with the Gophers and would have won the head-to-head game.
 

All right, my site has been updated now with this result. Another thing I need to fix on my site is that, in 1892 and 1893, the Gophers were in a conference called the Intercollegiate Athletic Association of the Northwest and they were the champions for both years of its existence.

One thing to note - if the 1892 result really had been a Badger win, they would have been co-champions with the Gophers and would have won the head-to-head game.

That's more than a note. I would call that strong evidence to support the Gopher win.
 

I emailed David DeLassus (who is the College Football Data Warehouse) links to the newspaper reports of the game and he is aware of the error and will be updating the site.

With the response I got, I don't think I'm the only one that sent him info.
 

I emailed David DeLassus (who is the College Football Data Warehouse) links to the newspaper reports of the game and he is aware of the error and will be updating the site.

With the response I got, I don't think I'm the only one that sent him info.

I sent him the links too. When he updates the link, I will update the rivalry page on Wikipedia.

The hardest hurdle may be getting the U to update the media guide!
 

I sent him the links too. When he updates the link, I will update the rivalry page on Wikipedia.

The hardest hurdle may be getting the U to update the media guide!

I also sent him the info, so he's probably wondering why there's a sudden tidal wave of Gopher fans demanding this change! The site also had a few other data "questions" where he was looking for more information about a few other games regarding the date and/or location of the game, so I found that information in other articles and sent those along to him as well. There is the 1903 game vs. Lawrence which the U has incorrectly labelled as a road game, the 1897 Purdue game which Purdue has the wrong date in its records and the 1919 Indiana game which Indiana incorrectly lists as being played in Minneapolis when it was played in Indianapolis.
 

I see today that the College Football Data Warehouse has finally been updated with the correct score for the 1892 game, so any experienced Wikipedia editors should feel free to update the pages there. I haven't heard anything back from the U or from the Wisconsin Athletic Department yet, so I think I'll try another message.
 

I see today that the College Football Data Warehouse has finally been updated with the correct score for the 1892 game, so any experienced Wikipedia editors should feel free to update the pages there. I haven't heard anything back from the U or from the Wisconsin Athletic Department yet, so I think I'll try another message.

I do hope the Media Guide gets updated. Maybe someone should print out the newspaper articles and mail them to the U, they might take that seriously, it's easy to dismiss some e-mails as coming from cranks. Does anyone know anyone who works at the Minnesota Daily? This would make a good story.

The rivalry page on Wikipedia should be updated. I will do it if I get time. The article is a bit of a mess, not only do you need to change the score, you need to make sure all the totals add up.
 

Wow, just saw this thread and I cannot believe this change was ever made.

They could have walked to Wilson and could have read the actual newspaper in the basement archives. It's pathetically easy.

Or they could have went to numerous campus terminals and accessed the same things with their U of M account.
 

I just noticed something interesting - if you click on the link to the Badger article in the first post of this thread, it comes up as a non-existent page. I hope that means that they have gotten the information I sent since that article was active within the last couple of weeks. Here's a link from an internet archive to that article:

https://web.archive.org/web/2013120.../11/it-started-innocently-enough-sundays.html
 

I just noticed something interesting - if you click on the link to the Badger article in the first post of this thread, it comes up as a non-existent page. I hope that means that they have gotten the information I sent since that article was active within the last couple of weeks. Here's a link from an internet archive to that article:

https://web.archive.org/web/2013120.../11/it-started-innocently-enough-sundays.html

It could well be that the quietly pulled the article after it was shown to be erroneous. It would have been better to have issued a retraction. Now let's see if it gets changed in the Badger media guide. For it to be changed in the Gophers media guide might be too much to ask for. I'm surprised other teams haven't contacted the U to see if they will turn wins into losses. Maybe Grinnell will petition to have the 1904 146-0 Minnesota victory turned into a 150-146 Grinnell win.
 

Gopher Football: Obsessing over the score of a game from 122 years ago.
Badger Football: Going to Rose Bowls and winning The Axe.
 

Gopher Football: Obsessing over the score of a game from 122 years ago.
Badger Football: Going to Rose Bowls and winning The Axe.

As we now know, the hordes of Buckyville are a shameless, classless lot. Setting the record straight is the right thing to do. I notice winning national championships is absent in your statement on Skunk football. Just as well. It will never happen.
 

Gopher Football: Obsessing over the score of a game from 122 years ago.
Badger Football: Going to Rose Bowls and winning The Axe.

You mean:

Badger Football: Trying to change history using extremely flimsy evidence
Gopher Football: Standing up for the guys who won the game 122 years ago on the field
 




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