College Football

Bret Bielema and Tim Brewster clash on Twitter, but why?

The former Wisconsin and Minnesota coaches, and rivalry combatants, take their feud to Twitter.

By Patrick Vint May 30, 2013, 9:05pm EDT

Bret Bielema and Tim Brewster have history. Three years ago, the coaches were on opposite sides of the longest-running rivalry in college football, the Battle for Paul Bunyan's Axe. In the 2010 edition of the Axe game, Bielema's Wisconsin Badgers built a 41-16 lead on Minnesota with a touchdown late in the fourth quarter, then went for two.

Tim Brewster, then the head coach at Minnesota, was not happy about Bielema's decision, nearly dislocating Bielema's shoulder during a postgame handshake and chastising him during the postgame press conference. Bielema, barely holding back his glee, blamed it on his two-point conversion card:

The loss was Brewster's fourth game without a victory against Bielema. A couple of weeks later, he was fired by the Gophers. Bielema went on to win three straight Big Ten championships.

Fast forward three years. Bielema is the new head coach at Arkansas. After a one-year stint on the staff at Mississippi State, Brewster is the tight ends coach for Florida State. Brewster has brought his exclamation-point-heavy Twitter stylings to Tallahassee, while Bielema has quickly taken to the social network to "interact" with angry Wisconsin fans.

On Thursday night, the two clashed again. Brewster took a shot at SEC scheduling:

Just so the SEC knows and I been there, Fla St will play any of y'all anywhere, anyplace anytime!! #NoleNation #LetsRide!
— Tim Brewster (@TimBrewster) May 30, 2013

It took Bielema just 27 minutes to fire a shot at his old nemesis:

Sometimes comedy comes in many different ways. Couldn't resist this one. #SEC #WPS twitter.com/BretBielema/st…
— Bret Bielema (@BretBielema) May 30, 2013

Somewhere in Florida, Tim Brewster is violently shaking his Blackberry and formulating a response that will include no less than seven exclamation points and two hashtags.

Brewster is, as usual, full of bluster and hot air. Florida State plays Florida every year, but has not ~~scheduled~~ played a non-Florida SEC opponent since it joined the ACC in 1992, [edit: other than Alabama in 2007]; its last non-Florida SEC game was a win at LSU in 1991.And Bielema, who was known for schedules that could double as flotation devices while at Wisconsin, has little room to chastise another team for a schedule comment. Still, it's good to see that the feud has traveled south with these two.