Founded in 1882, the Minnesota Golden Gophers are a historic college football program and a founding member of the Big Ten Conference (since 1896), currently playing at Huntington Bank Stadium under head coach P. J. Fleck. The team claims seven national championships, including four major wire-service titles (1936, 1940, 1941, and 1960), with their greatest dynasty coming under coach Bernie Bierman, who led them to three straight national titles from 1934 to 1936 and an 18-game winning streak, while halfback Bruce Smith won the Heisman Trophy in 1941. Interestingly, their first coach, Thomas Peebles, is credited as the father of American cheerleading, and they hold the longest-running rivalry in Division I-A football against Wisconsin, having played 132 times. However, after World War II, the program fell from power because Bierman resisted key innovations like two-platoon substitution and the split-T formation, while the university's conservative administration opposed major conference changes. Despite these historical ups and downs, the Gophers remain a significant and storied program in college football history.