Talk may be cheap, but boy is it entertaining — especially when it’s talk between Minnesota and Wisconsin regarding the battle for Paul Bunyan’s Axe. Forget the game, the chatter provides fireworks enough.

Like when Badgers sophomore offensive tackle Gabe Carimi tells the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that “Minnesota is my most despised team.”

Or, how about the rumor floating around that Wisconsin will stash the Axe, which it currently possesses, behind the Gophers’ bench. That way, the Badgers could deny Minnesota the rush of crossing the field to retrieve the trophy but storm the Gophers’ sideline if they retain it .

Now flashback a year to when Wisconsin head coach Bret Bielema uttered this after his team’s 41-34 victory over Minnesota: “You want a rivalry? You got one.”

Gophers coaches and players have avoided fanning the flame of the already fiery rivalry with sound-bytes like that, but head coach Tim Brewster said after Wednesday’s practice, “You can tell there’s a meaningful game going to be played on Saturday. There’s something in the air.”

As if the oldest and one of the most bitter rivalries in the country wasn’t enough, Saturday’s game, scheduled for 2:30 p.m. in Madison, has major implications for both Minnesota and Wisconsin.

Instead of battling for the Big Ten championship as many believed they would before the season, the Badgers are floundering at 5-5 . A conference title may no longer be in the cards, but the Gophers can be sure Wisconsin would love nothing more than to become bowl eligible at Camp Randall while retaining the Axe for the fifth consecutive year.

On the other hand, Minnesota (7-3 overall, 3-3 Big Ten) has known it’s headed to a bowl for weeks, but after two straight losses and a pair of tough games remaining, the Gophers are running the risk of slipping to the Motor City Bowl (the Big Ten’s worst bowl) when not long ago people were considering the possibility of Minnesota appearing in one on New Year’s Day.

Stopping the skid won’t be easy. Brewster announced Tuesday that star wide receiver Eric Decker would be unavailable for Saturday’s game. The junior, a Biletnikoff Award finalist , suffered a high ankle sprain during the third quarter against Northwestern two weeks ago.

“[Eric] playing this week against Wisconsin would not be in his best interest,” Brewster said.

Decker tried to play last week against Michigan, but lasted just more than a quarter; the ankle was clearly bothering him.

Without Decker, the Gophers’ offense has seemed lost. Against the Wolverines, it gained a season low 188 yards and failed to find the end zone for the first time since being shut out by Ohio State on Oct. 28, 2006.

Minnesota will be calling on a variety of receivers to try and fill the void left by Decker. True freshmen Brodrick Smith and Brandon Green and junior Ben Kuznia are listed on the depth chart as the starters at wide receiver , but Brewster said sophomore Ralph Spry, back from a three-game suspension, and true freshman Da’Jon McKnight would also see reps.

“There’s not one individual that’s going to replace Decker … from a talent standpoint or from a schematic standpoint,” Brewster said. But he repeated his adage of “Next man up. His misfortune is somebody else’s opportunity.”

To see what the young receivers can do, the offensive line needs to give sophomore quarterback Adam Weber some time in the pocket. He was under siege all game against Michigan, and when he wasn’t being sacked four times, he was looking immediately for who was going to hit him. The result was Weber’s worst passing day of the season, 13-of-24 for only 105 yards.

Of course, if Weber expects to have any time in the pocket, the Gophers will have to put together some semblance of a run game. They’ve scraped together only 83 and 68 yards on the ground in the last two weeks.

For a team striving for balance, that doesn’t get the job done.

“The first runs, we got to try to come out, get 5 or 6 yards, just keep the chains moving,” true freshman running back Deleon Eskridge said. “Just to get something started and get a little confidence.”