The Minnesotaâ€"Nebraska football rivalry is an American college football rivalry between the Minnesota Golden Gophers and Nebraska Cornhuskers.
History
The rivalry can be split into four eras. The first two are Minnesota's glory days, and Nebraska's rise to prominence. These eras took place when the teams were non-conference rivals. They played each other on a fairly regular basis from 1900â€"74, then on a much more intermittent basis until 1990. The Big Ten era started in 2011, when Nebraska joined and was in the Legends Division with Minnesota. The trophy era began in 2014, with the creation of the $5 Bits of Broken Chair Trophy. Minnesota leads the series 31â€"24â€"2; from 1900â€"54, they went 28â€"5â€"2. Nebraska then won 17 of the next 18 games; the last 12 victories (1969â€"2012) were major blowouts, such as the 84â€"13 drubbing in 1983, the worst loss in Minnesota history.
$5 Bits of Broken Chair Trophy
The origin of the $5 Bits of Broken Chair Trophy is rooted in November 2014 banter between the Twitter accounts for Minnesota mascot Goldy Gopher and "Faux Pelini", a parody account for Bo Pelini, Nebraska's head coach at the time. Goldy suggested a wager on the game with this tweet: "Hey @FauxPelini, how about a friendly wager for this weekend's game? Team that gets the most points gets a conference win? Seem fair?" Faux Pelini responded "OK how about if we [Nebraska] win you give me $5, if you [Minnesota] win I get to smash a wooden chair over your back". This prompted Goldy to start crowdsourcing Twitter followers and the community at Reddit's college football section to design the "$5 Bits of Broken Chair Trophy". Many designs were quickly presented and eventually Goldy created a real trophy, which was brought to the 2014 game in Lincoln. Minnesota won 28â€"24 to take the trophy, their first victory in Lincoln since 1960; it also gave Minnesota their first winning streak against Nebraska since their 3-game streak from 1951â€"54. It received widespread acceptance from both fanbases, and has since been subsequently displayed at Minnesota's spirit events with other trophies such as Floyd of Rosedale and the Little Brown Jug. The trophy changed hands for the first time on October 17, 2015 after Nebraska defeated Minnesota 48â€"25 in Minneapolis.
In 2016, after Nebraska defeated Minnesota in Lincoln, the trophy seemingly disappeared. Inquiries to both the Nebraska and Minnesota athletic departments on the status of the trophy revealed that both school's position on the trophy was that it never existed as an official trophy between the school to begin with. This essentially ended the $5 Bits of Broken Chair Trophy in any official capacity with no plans between the two school to have it replaced.
Game results
References
