Before the Gophers football team boarded coach buses for their road trip for a game in Madison, Wis., last fall, each player received a small travel canister of Axe Body Spray.

The Gophers were headed to play Wisconsin in battle for Paul Bunyan’s Axe on Nov. 24 — a rivalry game Minnesota hadn’t won since 2003 and not away from home since 1994.

Along with the fragrance, coach P.J. Fleck delivered this message in a team meeting: “If you don’t want to win the Axe, don’t get on the bus. Here’s what we are going to do. … We are going to create such an atmosphere in that locker room after we win that you will never, ever forget the smell.”

Once Minnesota smoked Wisconsin in a 37-15 rout at Camp Randall Stadium, the Gophers reveled with the six-foot axe on the field. Players paraded it from one end zone to the other to mock-chop down the goal posts. With coaches, they held it in their arms and gave it longing glances. They posed for many, many photos, selfies, Snapchats and Instagram stories.

They then moved the party into the small visiting locker room inside the Badgers’ 102-year-old stadium. In the entryway, Fleck doused himself with multiple sprays of Axe’s Phoenix scent, the one marketers say makes you “feel fresh and cool.” He then burst into the locker room to continue the raucous celebration.

These scenes are a culmination of how the sense of smell has been incorporated into Minnesota’s football program. The lobby of the Larson Football Performance Center has a steady supply of a plug-in air freshener between the entrance and the elevator. Upstairs, scented candles often are lit in Fleck’s corner office, meeting rooms and elsewhere.

With 120 young men sweating into pads and jerseys during practice and in weight-room workouts, a football complex can can get pretty dank pretty quick. On a basic level, these scents help mask those sometimes-overpowering odors.

Gophers kicker Emmit Carpenter sniffed out the new aromas soon after Fleck took over in January 2017.

“It’s pretty easy for things to get kind of smelly just because there are so many guys working hard,” Carpenter said. “You’d turn the corner and there is a new candle sitting right there and the whole room smells great. I thought, ‘This is kind of nice. I could get used to this.’ ”

Fleck knew in 2011 that he wanted to incorporate scents into his program when he was Rutgers’ receivers coach under offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti. Cignetti, who has had many turns on the coaching carousel, including Aaron Rodgers’ quarterbacks coach in Green Bay in 2018, had an affinity for Bath and Body Works’ three-wick candles.

“Here’s this NFL quarterback coach, but he wanted a type of feeling when you walked into his staff room,” Fleck said. “That gave me the biggest idea that I’m going to use this on a whole new level.”

Another root of Fleck’s use of scents came from a stay at a JW Marriott. The luxury hotel pipes its “Subtle Sophistication” scent into the rooms and other spaces. Fleck asked about how its done and marveled at their ways to spread the “effervescent citrus top notes and aromatic blend of sweet cyclamen infused with a finishing touch of amber.”

If this seems over the top for a college football program, there’s science to back it up. The peer-reviewed journal “Science” said in 2014 that humans can distinguish more than one trillion scents, which is more than the sounds or colors, opening up the possibilities of what smells can do to the brain.

Scientific American wrote that while smells do affect someone’s mood, performance and behavior, it isn’t because the smell operates like a drug. For the smell to elicit a response, it must first be associated with an event, the magazine said.

For the lobby of the Gophers’ headquarters, they often have a new-car-like scent to grab the attention of, most importantly, high school recruits or big-money donors. That smell will greet them as they look over the adjacent Hall of Fame room with the program’s new jerseys on display along with Bruce Smith’s 1941 Heisman Trophy and other memorabilia.

“When you come in to showrooms … to buy a car, there is that sense of newness,” Fleck said. “… With the sense that something is new, you want to take care of it. We have a brand-new building and a lot of people donated a lot of money to have it. We want to make sure when they walk in, it’s clean.”

The candles upstairs usually rotate scents. During the winter holidays, it could be peppermint or balsam. In the spring, it’s reminding them summer is around the corner with hints of mango and a sandy beach. In the fall, it has been campfire or pumpkin.

Given the science, the scent of a campfire in a running back room could induce a tailback to reminisce on, say, a party they attended after a big Friday night win in high school. Looking to recreate that in college, the memory that scent induces could help the player be more attentive in the ensuing film session.

During the season, U staffers have run errands to nearby stores to grab batches of candles. This is an example of what Fleck was talking about when he said early in his tenure that there could be some odd purchases in the program’s expense reports.

The program hasn’t stayed fully on brand, though. They Gophers passed on using the “Row The Boat” candles made by the Excelsior Candle Co. Those specialty candles at $35 a pop are a partnership with Fleck and his trademarked phrase. They come in scents of Spa Day, Tranquil Forest, Lake Superior Mist and Silver Lining, with a portion of the proceeds, the candle company says, going to Fleck’s favorite cause: the University of Minnesota Masonic Children’s Hospital.

But back to those cheap canisters of Axe Body Spray in Wisconsin’s visiting locker room last November.

“There are things that have worked, and things that have backfired,” Fleck admitted. “This would be a backfire.”

Jacked up, Gophers players turned the locker room into an overwhelming cloud that was supposed to resemble the sweet notes of lavender, geranium and citrus fruits. But the chemical spray was entering their noses, going into players’ lungs and seeping into their eyes.

“Guys were going crazy, spraying it everywhere,” Carpenter said. “It almost turned into a hazard.”

“Everybody’s coughing,” Fleck added. “I’m trying to talk, and I can’t get any words out.”

Everybody survived, and it wasn’t necessarily a backfire.

“I’m sure one day I will be walking around and there will be a teenager covered in Axe Body Spray walking past me,” Carpenter said. “It will definitely take me back to celebrating with all my brothers in the Wisconsin locker room.”

With that in mind, maybe the Gophers would be wise to bring back (some) of the Axe Body Spray when the Badgers seek revenge on Nov. 30 at TCF Bank Stadium.

GOPHERS’ SPRING GAME

WHO: Gold vs. Maroon

WHEN: 11 a.m. Saturday

WHERE: Gophers’ indoor practice facility

ADMISSION: Because of this week’s snowstorm, the U moved the scrimmage from TCF Bank Stadium, and with limited indoor space, fans will not be able to attend.

TV: Big Ten Network at 4 p.m.

RADIO: Live on Gophers Radio Network

STREAM: Live on BTN2Go