Omaha World Herald: New coach P.J. Fleck brings boatload of energy to Minnesota

BleedGopher

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per Barfknecht:

If I had to guess what new Minnesota football coach P.J. Fleck’s initials stand for, it would be “Perpetually Juiced.”

The 36-year-old, who took 13-1 Western Michigan to the Cotton Bowl last season, wears cleats to practice. It makes it easier to chase somebody down for a pep talk or a correction.

Sportswriters don’t have big enough notebooks to collect all of Fleck’s words. But here are some of the beliefs and philosophies he brings to Minnesota while making $3.5 million annually:

» What it means to be a head coach: “My job as a head coach is to be the motivator, the stimulator, the brander of the program,” Fleck told Sports Illustrated in 2015. “How do I transform our kids on a daily basis? My job is way bigger than Xs and Os. My job is the person, not the player.”

» Program culture: “We look at our entire program as a family. We don’t look at it as a business. I consider myself the dad of the family. Our assistant coaches are the uncles. I want (the players) to see us as coaches, but also as teachers and role models and dads and how we interact with our children.”

» His obsession with turnover margin: “At Western Michigan, we were 116th in the nation when we were 1-11. We were No. 1 in the country when we went 13-1. The two teams that kind of shocked the college football world last year were Western Michigan and Washington, and they were No. 1 and No. 2 in turnover margin. It’s the No. 1 statistic tied to winning. It’s not all these fancy plays. You fumble and you turn it over, and it doesn’t matter.”

Fleck has been labeled the front man for the “new age” of college football coaching. Whether he is on the cutting edge or the bloody edge remains to be seen.

“I’m not for everybody,” he said on the Big Ten teleconference, which is why he prefers to hire people who know him and have worked with him before.

“They know what I’m like, how I run the program and how I run a culture because it’s very unique and very different.”

http://www.omaha.com/huskers/footba...cle_cd6c3ae4-98cb-551d-97c0-0e01264b497d.html

Go Gophers!!
 




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