Shama: A prominent businessman, big-time U booster thinks Fleck is going to be a star

per Shama:

A prominent businessman, U alum and big-time Gopher booster thinks Fleck is going to be a coaching star. He told me this fall Minnesota will be on its way as soon as Fleck’s second season. The view from here: with so many inexperienced and new players in 2018, that’s not likely.

Fleck needs to not just eventually breakthrough with a couple of winning seasons, but more importantly develop a program with continued success. Can he do it?

That’s the golden question in Dinkytown. He has only been a head coach for five years. At Western Michigan he had one knockout season, his last one in 2016 when the Broncos were 13-1 and a damn good team. His first season at Western, in 2013, the record was 1-11, then came two 8-5 years.

Fleck’s combined record as a head coach is 35 wins, 29 losses. Certainly circumstances, including resources available, have much to do with a coach’s record but it’s interesting the Broncos program he left behind was just 6-6 overall and 4-4 in Mid-American Conference games this past season. Maybe the Broncos missed Fleck’s leadership that much, or perhaps he left a program still not built for sustained high level success.

http://shamasportsheadliners.com/

Go Gophers!!

Little longer off season for me dissecting this past season, reading negative posts etc. Regardless I'm happy to hear that a big-time Gopher booster thinks Fleck is going to be a coaching star. I'm on the boat also.

In other news the sky is blue and Ms Lippy's car is green

No Sh!t Sherlock.

This sounds like a Doogie headline.


"A anonymous, yet prominent past player at the U is criticizing Fleck and wishes Claeys was back"

BleedGopher said:

per Shama:

A prominent businessman, U alum and big-time Gopher booster thinks Fleck is going to be a coaching star. He told me this fall Minnesota will be on its way as soon as Fleck’s second season. The view from here: with so many inexperienced and new players in 2018, that’s not likely.

Fleck needs to not just eventually breakthrough with a couple of winning seasons, but more importantly develop a program with continued success. Can he do it?

That’s the golden question in Dinkytown. He has only been a head coach for five years. At Western Michigan he had one knockout season, his last one in 2016 when the Broncos were 13-1 and a damn good team. His first season at Western, in 2013, the record was 1-11, then came two 8-5 years.

Fleck’s combined record as a head coach is 35 wins, 29 losses. Certainly circumstances, including resources available, have much to do with a coach’s record but it’s interesting the Broncos program he left behind was just 6-6 overall and 4-4 in Mid-American Conference games this past season. Maybe the Broncos missed Fleck’s leadership that much, or perhaps he left a program still not built for sustained high level success.

http://shamasportsheadliners.com/

Go Gophers!!

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WMU opened with USC and Michigan State for their first two games. This is going to be tough in year zero for anybody. They were competitive in those two games. They lost by 1, 7 and 4 in other games. So, I wouldn't say the season was alarming by any means. They also lost their entire recruiting class in mid-January. Also, not a good start. So come on Shama!! Plus, the prominent guy is so convinced we can't use his name?

60's Guy said:

WMU opened with USC and Michigan State for their first two games. This is going to be tough in year zero for anybody. They were competitive in those two games. They lost by 1, 7 and 4 in other games. So, I wouldn't say the season was alarming by any means. They also lost their entire recruiting class in mid-January. Also, not a good start. So come on Shama!! Plus, the prominent guy is so convinced we can't use his name?

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A really insightful commentary - WMU could easily have been 8-4 or better.

Could Shama do even the slightest bit of research? Those two 8-5 seasons that he just glosses over as no big deal were both seasons where Western Michigan went 6-2 in conference play. In 2015, WMU lost @Purdue, @ Virginia Tech, and against Air Force in a bowl game in addition to their two conference losses against Toledo and Northern Illinois. For what it's worth, WMU lost 20-19 in OT to Toledo for one of their two losses. Northern Illinois and Toledo both finished 7-1 in conference play that year. In 2015, WMU lost vs no.5 MSU, @Georgia Southern (bad loss? finished 6-2 in their conference and took Georgia to OT on the road), and @no.1 Ohio State in addition to their two conference losses to Bowling Green and Northern Illinois. The 27-19 loss to Northern Illinois was the tiebreaker between NIU and WMU (both 6-2 in conference) playing for the MAC Title. Bowling Green would go on to beat NIU in the MAC title game, so once again the two losses were against the 2 best (or 2 of the best 3) teams in the conference.

My point is, both of these seasons were certainly very good. The Gophers haven't went 6-2 in conference play in my lifetime (now that would be 7-2) and WMU lost a bunch of games to power 5 conference teams and lost to only the very best of their own conference in these two years. The only bad loss in the bunch is @Georgia Southern and even that could be debated. These were very good seasons for a MAC team/coach. I am not sure how those 3 years are not considered "sustained success".

60's Guy said:

WMU opened with USC and Michigan State for their first two games. This is going to be tough in year zero for anybody. They were competitive in those two games. They lost by 1, 7 and 4 in other games. So, I wouldn't say the season was alarming by any means. They also lost their entire recruiting class in mid-January. Also, not a good start. So come on Shama!! Plus, the prominent guy is so convinced we can't use his name?

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Think we can safely guess that he does NOT wear a scarf.

60's Guy said:

WMU opened with USC and Michigan State for their first two games. This is going to be tough in year zero for anybody. They were competitive in those two games. They lost by 1, 7 and 4 in other games. So, I wouldn't say the season was alarming by any means. They also lost their entire recruiting class in mid-January. Also, not a good start. So come on Shama!! Plus, the prominent guy is so convinced we can't use his name?

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I think Fleck saw this writing on the wall too, and it had something to do with him coming here. His star wasn't ever going to be brighter in the near term than it was at that point (how could it be?) He knew he was going to be losing his star senior QB, a top 5 draft pick WR, upgrading the non-con SOS a lot, and was destined for 8-9 wins or so at a best case.

Then, once him and his staff left and a decent chunk of the recruiting class went with it...well, that's a perfect recipe for a downturn.

PJF faced many of the same headwinds here as his old team faced in 2017. College football just moves in cycles like this.

I didn't think wins against bad teams counted, when it comes to evaluating coaches. Ive seen that used to subtract actual wins from the Kill/Claeys resume.

Now, we're not only counting "bad wins" for Fleck, but using close losses and losses to good teams to add wins the Fleck resume?

It's really fascinating how "evidence" is manufactured or disposed of to support viewpoints.

Heracles said:

I didn't think wins against bad teams counted, when it comes to evaluating coaches. Ive seen that used to subtract actual wins from the Kill/Claeys resume.

Now, we're not only counting "bad wins" for Fleck, but using close losses and losses to good teams to add wins the Fleck resume?

It's really fascinating how "evidence" is manufactured or disposed of to support viewpoints.

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Well, I guess you can believe we are in better shape now or not. Plenty of threads to discuss that elsewhere.