With the Wisconsin football team bringing Paul Bunyan’s Ax to Minnesota (3-1, 1-0 Big Ten) this weekend, there will be plenty of challenges the Badgers must overcome to take the Ax back home with them.

It is the first road test for UW (4-0, 1-0 Big Ten) this season — a big obstacle for a team that has gone 4-8 away from Camp Randall in the past two years.

It will also be the first Big Ten game at the new TCF Bank Stadium, a place that is sure to be rowdy and loud as the stadium welcomes its first conference opponent.

And, of course, there is the challenge of defeating the Badgers’ biggest rival for the sixth time in a row, a game UW sophomore cornerback Aaron Henry describes best.

“Whether Minnesota has an 0-10 record or we have an 0-10 record, that rivalry game is always something that is classic,” Henry said. “You can throw the records out the windows, throw the accolades out, because you are just going to have a great football game.”

While all of these factors will weigh in on the final result, perhaps most detrimental to Wisconsin’s chances of closing out the decade with eight wins in college football’s longest-running rivalry is the Badgers’ ability to stop consensus All-Big Ten wide receiver Eric Decker.

“He is the major part of their offense,” Henry said. “He has like 35 balls and the next wide receiver has 10. Most of [quarterback Adam] Weber’s passes go to Decker.”

Decker already has accumulated 499 yards at 14.3 yards per catch, along with four touchdowns through four games in September. As a junior, the 6-foot-3-inch, 220-pound Minnesota native broke his own reception record last season pulling in 84 balls for 1,074 yards.

So how does the most feared player at UM keep getting open?

“I believe I heard [head coach Tim Brewster] say that they try to script 10 plays that they have designed on cue that they can go to at any point during the course of each game that are designed specifically to get No. 7 the ball, and they’re never necessarily the same plays in a row,” UW head coach Bret Bielema said in Monday’s press conference.

To slow down Decker, the Badgers are planning on rotating sophomore Devin Smith and junior Niles Brinkley in coverage while providing safety help over the top. According to secondary coach Kerry Cooks, despite Decker’s other-worldly status, the star receiver has not encountered much double coverage this season.

“To be honest with you, there hasn’t been a lot of double teams,” Cooks said, “which is kind of surprising. This year, from what I have watched, he is obviously a big-bodied receiver, he’s got good speed, great hands and he is a great competitor.”

Bielema said last week the key to beating Michigan State was to shut down explosive wideout Blair White. The Badgers succeeded, holding White to only one reception and eight yards en route to a 38-30 win. Although two late drives skew the statistics, Wisconsin’s corners were able to limit the Spartans’ entire receiving crew with White unable to spring free.

With much of the same philosophy applying to the Gophers, UW’s success against White provides a bit of momentum for the challenge that is the physical Decker.

“It gives us tremendous confidence,” Henry said of shutting down White. “We went out there and handled our business. We were just playing football and it happened that White had one catch for eight yards.”

Besides Decker, Minnesota boasts a decent quarterback in Adam Weber — who the Badgers tried to recruit out of high school. According to Henry, the chemistry Weber and Decker have developed make the duo dangerous when a play breaks down.

“Whenever Weber is scrambling, Decker has the sense to go the end zone,” Henry said. “If you see Weber scrambling, then you have to man Decker up. A lot of times, instead of coming back to the ball, he is going to fly to the end zone and him and Weber are on the same page.”