16 WISCONSIN at MINNESOTA NOV. 12 • 2:30 P.M. • MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. • BTN
Regardless of their position on the field, every member of the UW football team is playing defense this week as the Badgers look to hang on to Paul Bunyan's Axe
BY MIKE LUCAS UWBADGERS.COM
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as Vegas and the UNLV campus was the furthest point east that DelVaughn Alexander, a Los Angeles native, had ever coached prior to taking a job on the Wisconsin football staff in 2007. His previous coaching stops included the University of San
Diego, Oregon State and the San Diego Chargers. So when he got to the Midwest, he had little knowledge of the Border Battle. "When you got to November,'' he said, "and you started to see the
television advertisements about big games and rivalries, you saw that Minnesota-Wisconsin was the oldest in college football.'' That was the depth of his exposure to the Gophers and Badgers. As a USC letter-winner, Alexander had been exposed to the rivalry with UCLA. "It's a big deal, but at the same time it's a big game inside of a big city,''
he said. "There are a lot of other things going on in Los Angeles and not everyone in the city is a Trojan or a Bruin. "It's more of a city battle than a state battle.'' Much less, too, than a battle between states -- Minnesota and Wiscon- sin -- the Border Battle.
