It was a tough weekend for Gopher football. First, Minnesota was eliminated from Big Ten Championship contention following Michigan State’s win over Northwestern. Then the Gophers lost to the Wisconsin Badgers, forfeiting Paul Bunyan’s Axe for the 10th straight year. Finally, on Sunday, the Gophers were dropped from both the BCS standings and the USA Today Poll.
After making an appearance at No. 25 last week, Notre Dame took Minnesota’s spot in the BCS standings this week after defeating BYU over the weekend. As for Wisconsin, they moved up four spots in the standings to No. 15 with the win in Minnesota.
On the USA Today Poll, the Gophers dropped out following a week where they were ranked No. 23. It ended a two-week streak for Minnesota in the poll, which started in Week 12 after the Gophers’ beat Penn State.
No surprise that Minnesota didn’t grace the AP Top 25 this week, but they did receive five votes. To add insult to injury, Nebraska received six votes.