The school’s athletic teams are called the Golden Gophers; they’re members of the Big Ten Conference. It is one of just 13 universities in the nation to offer NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision football, Division I men’s and women’s basketball and Division I ice hockey. The Golden Gophers’ most noteworthy rivalry is the yearly college football game against the Wisconsin Badgers in which they play for Paul Bunyan’s Axe; it’s the longest-running rivalry in the NCAA’s history. The two schools also compete in the Border Battle; this is a year-long sports competition where each sport season is worth 40 points divided by the number of times the school play each other. The school’s mascot is Goldy Gopher; the gopher mascot is a tradition that is as old as the state, which was called the “Gopher State” in 1857 after a political cartoon satirized the $5 million Railroad Loan that helped open the West. The Gophers play other trophy games also like the game for The Little Brown Jug against the Michigan Wolverines, the game for Floyd of Rosedale, a bronze pig, against the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Governor’s Victory Bell played against the Penn State Nittany Lions.

The Golden Gophers are one of the oldest and most recorded programs in college football’s history. They won 6 National Championships and 18 Big Ten Conference championships. Their first game was played on September 29, 1882 against Hamline University. In 1890, they played host to the Wisconsin Badgers and won; except for 1906, the Gophers and Badgers have played each other every year since. They played 117 games against each other, which is the most played rivalry in Division I-A college football. The Gophers played their last home game in Memorial Stadium in 1981 and have played in the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome since. They will move to campus in 2009 when TCF Bank Stadium, their new home, opens.