What grade do you give PJ Fleck for coaching in the Northwestern game?

What grade do you give PJ Fleck for coaching in the Northwestern game?

C. Would have been a B for a competitive effort against a superior opponent, but I think he's sticking with Morgan too stubbornly. Turnovers and iffy decision-making really hurt yesterday.

C -

Fleck is truly being graded on a curve. A loss by double digits to a team Vegas thought we'd beat earns him a grade of C or B? Unbelievable.

I gave him a C, he had them in the game down to the end. I'd like to see a little better time out management, but given the inexperience on the field I'll cut him a little slack on that.

MZBKA1 said:

Fleck is truly being graded on a curve. A loss by double digits to a team Vegas thought we'd beat earns him a grade of C or B? Unbelievable.

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Vegas lines don’t do what you think they do

They get a C because of loss and turnovers. QB has to be more decisive when escaping pressure.

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MZBKA1 said:

Fleck is truly being graded on a curve. A loss by double digits to a team Vegas thought we'd beat earns him a grade of C or B? Unbelievable.

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You are outraged by a loss to a team that will be playing for the conference title in a few weeks? Team was in the game for the majority of it just couldn't overcome the turnovers.

MZBKA1 said:

Fleck is truly being graded on a curve. A loss by double digits to a team Vegas thought we'd beat earns him a grade of C or B? Unbelievable.

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The coach and knowledgeable fans don't judge the team against the spread. They judge the team by how they look on the field.

Was wavering between C and D. Most of these this year, I gave him the benefit of the doubt and went to the higher grade. Today I chose D.

-Wasting timeouts in first half really crippled our ability to run the two minute drill at the end of the half. I don't want to hear a recitation about the successful plays that we ran after the timeout. Plenty of coaches are able to regularly get effective play calls in without needing a timeout to think about it. Calling the timeout might have been the right decision if the call wasn't getting in quick enough, but part of coaching is being able to have the team ready to receive play calls and audible if necessary on the fly.

-Not going for an onside kick after our second touchdown.

-Why were we going so slow when trailing by multiple scores in the fourth quarter? We didn't need to be sprinting up to the line every play, but there is no excuse for running the play clock down to single digits when the game clock is running and time is against you.

everybody knows my name said:

The coach and knowledgeable fans don't judge the team against the spread. They judge the team by how they look on the field.

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I judge the team based on whether or not they outscore their opponent.

Our inexperience and youth at the QB spot showed today. If there was one thing I could change it would be the mistakes by the QB. That gets fixed we have a chance to win. All the other stuff imo is secondary. Can’t turn it over that many times against a team like Northwestern. Hopefully next year we aren’t making those kinds of mistakes at that position.


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Getting rid of Coach S (a whole year late. Never should have been hired) helps me in his rating, but... The O should score 28 minimum in every game. Coach C underperformed. The coordinators performance is the direct responsibility of the HC. A D for the NW game. A game that woulda coulda shoulda been won. I certainly expect things to get a lot better next year. The recruiting class to date is OK at best.

MZBKA1 said:

Fleck is truly being graded on a curve. A loss by double digits to a team Vegas thought we'd beat earns him a grade of C or B? Unbelievable.

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This loss was largely on the turnovers.
Turnovers are usually a player issue as most coaches don't fumble or throw interceptions or call plays to encourage these behaviors.

With a young team, I usually would consider 50% of the game result on coach 50% on player.
Today it was 20% coach 80% player.

Gophers could have beat NW on a good day, but that wasn't what we saw on the field, but if they had won, it would have been their #1 victory with a bullet. Them losing by 10 is hardly shocking. Disappointing, yes. Greatly disappointing, maybe not.

Greatly disappointing in that we might not go to a Bowl, yes. But that's more the culmination of the season than the specific loss to Northwestern.
I'm more disappointed in the season now that they lost yesterday than I am disappointed in losing to NW yesterday.

D.

The calls on the short yardage plays were ludicrous. Continually “wasting” timeouts. Finally bit the team in the ass when they surely could have put points on the board before the halftime break.

Even Wisconsin is able to snap the ball with 20+ seconds on the play clock - witnessed it in the 4th quarter miraculous comeback win vs Purdue last night. Why this team cannot get a play off with more than ten-fifteen seconds on the play clock remains frustrating. The coaches really seem to struggle with being a step ahead and making decisions. That flows from the top.

The little details, inches, seconds all matter.

Washington State (10-1, 7-1 Pac-12, No. 8 CFP) raced out to a 55-14 lead at halftime and was not seriously threatened on the way to its seventh consecutive victory. The Cougars host archrival No. 17 Washington next Friday, with the Apple Cup winner taking the Pac-12 North title.

Good for Tracy.

gopherveteran said:

Washington State (10-1, 7-1 Pac-12, No. 8 CFP) raced out to a 55-14 lead at halftime and was not seriously threatened on the way to its seventh consecutive victory. The Cougars host archrival No. 17 Washington next Friday, with the Apple Cup winner taking the Pac-12 North title.

Good for Tracy.

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Game announcers made some positive comments on him as well. I hope they win out. He's a good fella.

I went with a "C". A couple points before I begin my critique of what I didn't like. 1. I felt like we'd lose some games like this before I knew that we'd play the entire B1G slate without Rodney Smith and Antoine Winfield Jr- games where we were right in it but out inexperienced/bad QB play would be a major issue 2. There have been a lot of teams in this streak of Northwestern winning 13 of 14 (or whatever it's up to now) B1G games that have felt like "what the F? we should have won that game" including an Iowa fan base just last week...many of them didn't have multiple huge self inflicted wounds to point to losing to an "inferior" team, they just got worked.

My biggest issue with PJ in this game was the short yardage decisions and the use of timeouts. Down just 7-0 in the first half he chose to go for it on 4th and 1 from the 26. I am fine with this approach. I hated having to use a timeout before going for it on 4th and 1 and I hated even more trotting out the wildcat as the choice of plays after said timeout. They ran ball on 3rd and 5 the play before which says to me that they had an idea they would go for it if the run got close to the sticks. Get up to the line and take them by surprise. Failing that, get up to the line and try to draw them offsides. Failing that if you must use the wildcat, bring it out without using a timeout and run it without letting Northwestern give their kids a reminder about their keys for it on the sideline before you run it. To end up down a timeout here and running such a vanilla play to failure was really disappointing. The other big one was in the 3rd quarter trailing 13-7, the Gophers had a 2nd and 3 at the Northwestern 21. They ran on 2nd down and set up a 3rd and 1 from the 19. The third down run call seemed so generic and Northwestern was all over it. Now you decide to kick a fg from the same field position you went for it from in the first quarter? None of the logic makes sense to me here. If you are going to kick the fg if you fail to convert in this are now, then why aren't you running some sort of play action or at least some sort of exotic run on 2nd or 3rd down?

I'd also ding Fleck for sticking Morgan in this game, but I don't know how healthy Annexstad truly is or how many reps he's getting in practice. Morgan didn't look right to me and was floating a lot of passes. Maybe they just didn't have a healthy QB option?

One thing that was instructive to me was how badly I thought Jeff Brohm mangled the Wisconsin game. His defense was clearly gassed and was simply done tackling Taylor. Despite this, he didn't go for 2 in the 2nd OT with a chance to win. He also kicked a FG from like the 2 yard line in the 4th quarter with his team up 11 to go up 14. Against that Wisconsin team, a TD there ends the game and forcing them to start from 2 drains a ton of clock. The point is a lot of these coaches make decisions that you think are really bad. I don't like PJ's philosophy with timeouts, but it seems like every coach not named Belichick has significant issues with clock management, timeout management, and statistically "correct" decision making.

Some guy said:

Vegas lines don’t do what you think they do

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Lol I was thinking the same thing. Some people don’t understand gambling I guess

everybody knows my name said:

The coach and knowledgeable fans don't judge the team against the spread. They judge the team by how they look on the field.

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Do they look at the scoreboard or record when judging? Just a question from an ignorant fan.

Pompous Elitist said:

D.

The calls on the short yardage plays were ludicrous. Continually “wasting” timeouts. Finally bit the team in the ass when they surely could have put points on the board before the halftime break.

Even Wisconsin is able to snap the ball with 20+ seconds on the play clock - witnessed it in the 4th quarter miraculous comeback win vs Purdue last night. Why this team cannot get a play off with more than ten-fifteen seconds on the play clock remains frustrating. The coaches really seem to struggle with being a step ahead and making decisions. That flows from the top.

The little details, inches, seconds all matter.

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You are an absolute moron if you don’t realize the gophers are intentionally running the clock late.

Some guy said:

You are an absolute moron if you don’t realize the gophers are intentionally running the clock late.

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Does this include when we are down multiple scores late in the fourth quarter? Because in that situation, intentionally running the clock seems like an unusual strategy.

bleedsmaroonandgold said:

Does this include when we are down multiple scores late in the fourth quarter? Because in that situation, intentionally running the clock seems like an unusual strategy.

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No. But it includes the time he was talking about.

Gophers are trying to shorten the game. Gophers are trying to call plus based on defensive alignment. Half the teams in college football do stuff like that.

I agree I don’t really like sense of urgency at times. I also believe we have given up on games earlier than I would have the past two seasons.

Some guy said:

You are an absolute moron if you don’t realize the gophers are intentionally running the clock late.

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Ok, sure.

Some guy said:

No. But it includes the time he was talking about.

Gophers are trying to shorten the game. Gophers are trying to call plus based on defensive alignment. Half the teams in college football do stuff like that.

I agree I don’t really like sense of urgency at times. I also believe we have given up on games earlier than I would have the past two seasons.

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So why did you respond to my post. You’ve had some real odd takes this season.

I think we all deserve an explanation for why you think running the clock out in the 4th quarter when down by 2-3 scores is great strategy. I don’t think I or anyone else here has ever heard that. I’ll give you a chance to recant your post and issue a mea culpa before naming it to my All Time top 10 list.

We’ve had people defending or rationalizing Robb’s **** defense as being the fault of the talent and/or youth, early and often time out usage, playing crippled QBs, puzzling motivational tools, but purposely running while losing the clock down as a strategy is a new one. The staff clearly can’t get plays in on time. I guess we’re stuck if we’re playing from behind.

Pompous Elitist said:

I think we all deserve an explanation for why you think running the clock out in the 4th quarter when down by 2-3 scores is great strategy. I don’t think I or anyone else here has ever heard that. I’ll give you a chance to recant your post and issue a mea culpa before naming it to my All Time top 10 list.

We’ve had people defending or rationalizing Robb’s **** defense as being the fault of the talent and/or youth, early and often time out usage, playing crippled QBs, puzzling motivational tools, but purposely running while losing the clock down as a strategy is a new one. The staff clearly can’t get plays in on time. I guess we’re stuck if we’re playing from behind.

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It is extremely puzzling. The in-game adjustments and time management just have not improved. Gophs could be sitting at 7 wins going into Madtown.