The Transition

I could be mistaken, but I don't think the transition to Fleck will be nearly as difficult or severe for the strong majority of the team as people might fear. Here's why.....

Jerry Kill built his teams on having a strong culture, so that notion is not foreign to those recruited by him.
That culture was about discipline, accountability and extremely hard work. Players played for Jerry because they believed in that and believed in him. How soon we sometimes forget how strong that internal culture really was.

When Claeys took over, I truly think he was more of a no-nonsense football guy. The culture thing, from the outside, did not appear to be as strong with his team as they were with Jerry. There were definite things I saw from a pure nuts and bolts football side that I was impressed with, but it seemed that discipline and accountability had taken a half step back.

Now, most of the Claeys players that were here under Kill will now be under Fleck. While the words and slogans might be different, I believe I'm seeing many of the same cultural influences with Fleck that we saw with Kill. Not only will this all sound somewhat familiar to them, but it will be welcome to almost all of them. I believe that kids that age thrive when they know what their boundaries and expectations are.

That's why I'm thinking that the transition will be in large part a reset, with the differences being the actual coaching of Kill and Fleck.

I'm optimistic.