Wisconsin vs. Minnesota 2017 live stream: Start time and how to watch online

The only thing standing between the No. 5 Wisconsin Badgers and a perfect regular season is a Minnesota Golden Gophers team that got shut out 39-0 in its last outing. Not to Ohio State. Not to Penn State. That happened against Northwestern.

But the Badgers can’t afford to overlook their border rival. Any loss for Wisconsin will essentially disqualify the program from the College Football Playoff. UW will make its move toward 12-0 — and work to keep Paul Bunyan’s Ax in the Badger State for one more year — when the two teams meet on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET. The game will be broadcast live on ABC (live stream).

Wisconsin has dominated this rivalry game in recent years, winning 13 straight against the Gophers to knot the all-time record between the teams at 59-59-8. Making it to 60 will only add extra tension to next week’s Big Ten Championship game. The Badgers are just two wins away from their first-ever Playoff bid, and that journey continues in the final week of the season in Minneapolis.

If you want to pick Wisconsin, you can just point at the box score from that Ohio State-Iowa game and walk away laughing. Or you can point out that your defense is one of the best anywhere, and Barrett sometimes looks totally lost in the downfield passing game. You can say, “Defense wins championships” and leave it there.

Can the Gophers get into a bowl with a 5-7 record? While it remains a possibility, it is not going to be easy.

As it stands there are 70 bowl eligible teams to fill 78 spots. So eight spots remain for 21 teams that could still get themselves to 6 wins. That seems daunting, but let’s narrow that list of 21 down a little bit.

You hope there are better days ahead, but that doesn’t make a humiliating loss like the one the Gophers suffered on Saturday any easier to stomach. It was the program’s worst loss since that beatdown courtesy of the Wolverines on Oct. 1, 2011. And that was the first year of the post-Tim Brewster era. I certainly anticipated a step back this season despite nine wins a season ago, but I never expected Minnesota to get obliterated by Northwestern.

Taylor has been a revelation for the Badgers. The freshman tailback currently ranks third in the NCAA in rushing yards with 1,657 through 11 games. While Michigan was able to slow him early on, Taylor still found a way to break free for 132 yards in Wisconsin’s biggest win of the year. Another big performance Saturday could put the stamp on a 12-0 season.

The Gophers were feisty enough to beat Nebraska at home, but Wisconsin is in a whole different class. Even with the added motivator of bowl eligibility on the line, Minnesota will fall short against a Badger team destined for bigger things.