1892 border skirmish: Gophers-badgers series history discrepancy

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GiantsOfTheNorth

GiantsOfTheNorth

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It appears there is a discrepancy in the overall football series between wisconSIN and Minnesota in football. The following website says that on October 29, 1892, the Gophers beat the skunks 32-4 on the road. This site lists the overall series as 59-56-8 in favor of the Gophers.
http://ericthrall.com/gophers/football/wisconsin.html

However, on page 196 of the 2013 Gopher football media guide, it says that we lost this game 32-40. Given that we lost this year's game 20-7, the media guide lists the overall series as 58-57-8. This is a significant error, and was thinking of tweeting Teague about it.
Furthermore, the History of Minnesota Football, published in 1928, states the following about the 1892 game on page 39:
"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
a 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."

It is VERY clear that Minnesota won this game, and we should not be robbed out of a win against that team from the east. :mad:
You can see from the following post that a badger fan got the outcome of the 1892 game switched.
http://archive.is/Jxns
 




It still shocks me the poor quality of the Badger staffer's research and that the Gophers athletic office took it at face value.
 




I still haven't heard anything back from anyone at either athletic department so I don't know whether there's any progress toward getting the official records updated, but the College Football Data Warehouse and Wikipedia have been updated successfully.
 

Winnipegopher said:
It still shocks me the poor quality of the Badger staffer's research and that the Gophers athletic office took it at face value.
Click to expand...

The person from Wisconsin stopped when he had one piece of evidence showing a Wisconsin win. That's terrible journalism, letting bias lead you to what you wanted to hear. An entry in a yearbook showing a Wisconsin win didn't prove anything, at most it shows you that you might want to take a closer look.

A closer look would have, in a few minutes, revealed the truth. Newspaper articles from the day after the game, both in Wisconsin and Minnesota confirm the score, and describe the game in detail.

Now, I'm not surprised that someone from Wisconsin would have succumbed to bias, there is always a temptation to see what you want to see. What does surprise me is that the U wouldn't check this out for themselves, and instead simply took their word for it. Actually, it shouldn't surprise me, it seems very much fitting with the culture here to get taken advantage of like that.

I do hope it gets fixed in the media guide, but since our athletics department is not responding, I'm not optimistic. Perhaps we should print out the newspaper articles and mail them to Teague.

Anyone have any connections to the Minnesota Daily? Sounds like it could make a good article.
 




I checked the media guide, and the proper score has been updated.
 


I received an email a few weeks ago from someone in the athletic department confirming that they have discussed this with the Wisconsin Athletic Department and both sides agreed that the record needed to be changed.

And it now gives us a 3 game lead in the series (59-56-8), so our series lead is safe for at least a few more years.
 




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