Per ESPN: P.J. Fleck: really good head coach

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Per ESPN: P.J. Fleck: really good head coach

"Minnesota just had itself a hell of a week. First, it signed head coach P.J. Fleck to a contract extension just as the coaching carousel tried to swirl his name into rumors. Then, the Gophers went out and scored their biggest win in years (decades? ages?).

Granted, if a blue-blood school really wants to come after Fleck, an eight-figure buyout might not be enough to dissuade it. But assuming for now that the vultures will not circle and that he will remain Minnesota's coach moving forward, let's acknowledge just how perfect this marriage is.

At both Western Michigan and Minnesota, Fleck energetically burned the two-deep to the ground and installed his own recruits as quickly as possible, resulting in some early growing pains. His WMU tenure began with 14 losses in 17 games, then finished with 20 wins in 23. At Minnesota, he inherited a team coming off of its first nine-win season in 14 years but started out with an 8-11 record. With a ridiculously young two-deep, however, the Gophers won four of their last six last year, and they've needed only nine games to pull off another nine-win season this fall.

If Fleck were to at some point leave for a blue blood, things could get weird. He wants to build HIS depth chart with HIS culture and HIS weird mantras. He makes a given program Fleck University, and ... well ... blue bloods tend to have both a deep history and a set of boosters who like that history quite a bit. Fleck building his own culture from scratch could be met with resistance.

That's all the better for Minnesota, though. The Gophers program has a rich history, too, but most of its brightest moments happened in the 1930s and early 1940s. (Bernie Bierman: five-time national title winner and maybe the most underrated coach in college football history.) This team hasn't finished higher than 18th in the AP poll in 57 years. It was ripe for a top-to-bottom cultural overhaul, and Fleck has provided that.

Fleck is also proving he can build a winning brand of football -- that he can Row the Boat in the land of 10,000 lakes -- without dominating his conference in recruiting the way he did at WMU. He's building burly lines, running the ball as much as humanly possible, and winning just enough recruiting battles to assure high-level depth in the receiving corps and secondary. He's containing the game as mentor Jim Tressel did, and he has built a team capable of sniffing out mistakes and taking full advantage of them. Nothing about this is unsustainable.

While a CFP trip isn't all that likely, the Gophers now have, per SP+, a 75% chance of finishing with 11 or more wins (not including bowls). And that's with a depth chart that is awfully sophomore-heavy. This run might be just beginning."
 

Hands down, this is the best writing I've seen to date on what's happening at the U of M.

It's not a millimeter deep like a lot of the crap that's out there — for example, "Row the Boat" is only mentioned in passing, rather than obsessing over it like so many puff pieces do. The writer touches on many points that are actually thought-provoking; it appears the writer actually has some grasp of the history of Minnesota football (and I loved the comments about Bierman). The issue of sustainability. The issue of fielding a very competitive team without dominating the conference in recruiting.

Well done. Nice to see true professionalism in sports journalism.
 

This is an excellent article. It’ll take commitment from the BOR, President and AD. It’s not just PJ. Paying off the Athletes Village needs to get done. There will be more projects on the way.
 


"
He wants to build HIS depth chart with HIS culture and HIS weird mantras."

I'll be thankful when the terms weird, schtick, car salesman, and anything related become obsolete. It's time to focus on him as a person. Row The Boat isn't just some catch phrase he uses because all the good ones are used up. This is personal to him and he is teaching 125 or more young men to be future leaders and teachers. As many others have said, I would run through a brick wall for him. 3 years ago when he was introduced, the first thought was "I want him as a life coach". I know this is only football, but the things he teaches relate to everyday life. How to be happy, how to take care of yourself, how to be the best you can be.
Sorry I went a little long, I just want to show my support.
 


The coaching staff’s ability to ID undervalued talent then develop them into top tier players is their secret sauce and can’t be underscored enough. That’s how you win at Western Michigan and Minnesota.
 

I know with our professional media here in Mpls, it was simply too much work for them to identify what PJ was doing in year one and how it may pay off in year 3 by burning down the two deep and... Oh yeah, getting a QB who can play.

Instead we read countless cheap-shot articles about how PJ says a lot of things and he wasn't winning enough in year 1 because they were young and in year 2 because his juco transfer QB couldn't pass Tanner Morgan or ZA on the depth chart.

Fleck was getting ripped for mis-identifying the talent of Vic Viramontes... and THAT was the reason why Fleck didn't know what we were doing and why it was so hard for our media to deal with the "EXCUSE" that we were young. We needed results NOW. Waiting until the second half of year 2 was TOO long, let alone year three. We've already waited 50 years. "Vic Viramontes" and "Year Zero" were mentioned numerous times on air instead of names Zack Annexstad, Tanner Morgan, Daniel Faalele, or Rashad Bateman.

But, hey, we have professional media that didn't have the time to look at our depth chart or recruiting classes from 2015 to realize why there weren't more Juniors and Seniors playing. Couldn't recall what it was that made a need for a culture shift here.

Instead they criticized the word "culture" to the point where it was the most over-referenced word on talk radio. Meanwhile, across improving programs across the NCAA, it's become a prominent word in post game speeches detailing why that team had success. We know PJ just says catchphrases a lot, but at some point our media might start to understand it's part of a detailed and planned methodology to make athletes better players and better people.

Too bad it takes a winning streak like this to slap it across their head, and articles being written by out-of-town outlets, to upstage their own writing ability for our media to understand it. Instead of trash articles of inaccurate generalizations for 2 years, the Twin Cities writers and talking heads could have built the first couple year foundation of their own media logs to better tell the history of how this change occurred. Instead, any future reference of PJ's turnaround here will be based on research of statistics, game tape, and internet message board content because no one felt the need to dig deeper and get conversations.

We're an impatient society, but this wasn't just impatience. It was laziness. Pure laziness to ask a follow up question, ask for a sit-down conversation, or to gain a deeper understand if there was substance there. Instead, in a total of 33 games, PJ took us to heights not seen in most people's lifetimes.
 
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Very good article, but in all its talk about the blue bloods it neglects to pose the obvious question of how programs rise to prominence in the first place--or potentially return to prominence in the case of a program like Minnesota.

I do think there's an unconscious bias against a cold-weather school, assuming that you'll never get enough good athletes to make the trek to this latitude. That, of course, ignores the successes in places like Boise, Madison, Fargo, and even Ann Arbor, which gets just about as much winter as we do. Heck, the Twin Cities is a tropical paradise compared to Fargo, and NDSU gets recruits from all over, who come to be coached up, realize their potential, and win a lot of games. That can happen anywhere.
 

Very good article, but in all its talk about the blue bloods it neglects to pose the obvious question of how programs rise to prominence in the first place--or potentially return to prominence in the case of a program like Minnesota.

I do think there's an unconscious bias against a cold-weather school, assuming that you'll never get enough good athletes to make the trek to this latitude. That, of course, ignores the successes in places like Boise, Madison, Fargo, and even Ann Arbor, which gets just about as much winter as we do. Heck, the Twin Cities is a tropical paradise compared to Fargo, and NDSU gets recruits from all over, who come to be coached up, realize their potential, and win a lot of games. That can happen anywhere.

I often think the same when considering location. Many student athletes want to part of something bigger than them, including a winning culture, and that can trump location. So do their parents. Most of us do. Fleck's program now offers that opportunity (as does Boise, Fargo, Michigan, Madison, Nebraska in the old days, etc.) with some unique life skills methods added in. It's not for everyone, but can be appealing to the right type of kid and parents who are looking for more than just football.
 



I often think the same when considering location. Many student athletes want to part of something bigger than them, including a winning culture, and that can trump location. So do their parents. Most of us do. Fleck's program now offers that opportunity (as does Boise, Fargo, Michigan, Madison, Nebraska in the old days, etc.) with some unique life skills methods added in. It's not for everyone, but can be appealing to the right type of kid and parents who are looking for more than just football.

If I'm a parent and my kid is considering Minnesota, I'd be very impressed with the football team's academic record and the emphasis on community involvement.
 

Per ESPN: P.J. Fleck: really good head coach

"Minnesota just had itself a hell of a week. First, it signed head coach P.J. Fleck to a contract extension just as the coaching carousel tried to swirl his name into rumors. Then, the Gophers went out and scored their biggest win in years (decades? ages?).

Granted, if a blue-blood school really wants to come after Fleck, an eight-figure buyout might not be enough to dissuade it. But assuming for now that the vultures will not circle and that he will remain Minnesota's coach moving forward, let's acknowledge just how perfect this marriage is.

At both Western Michigan and Minnesota, Fleck energetically burned the two-deep to the ground and installed his own recruits as quickly as possible, resulting in some early growing pains. His WMU tenure began with 14 losses in 17 games, then finished with 20 wins in 23. At Minnesota, he inherited a team coming off of its first nine-win season in 14 years but started out with an 8-11 record. With a ridiculously young two-deep, however, the Gophers won four of their last six last year, and they've needed only nine games to pull off another nine-win season this fall.

If Fleck were to at some point leave for a blue blood, things could get weird. He wants to build HIS depth chart with HIS culture and HIS weird mantras. He makes a given program Fleck University, and ... well ... blue bloods tend to have both a deep history and a set of boosters who like that history quite a bit. Fleck building his own culture from scratch could be met with resistance.

That's all the better for Minnesota, though. The Gophers program has a rich history, too, but most of its brightest moments happened in the 1930s and early 1940s. (Bernie Bierman: five-time national title winner and maybe the most underrated coach in college football history.) This team hasn't finished higher than 18th in the AP poll in 57 years. It was ripe for a top-to-bottom cultural overhaul, and Fleck has provided that.

Fleck is also proving he can build a winning brand of football -- that he can Row the Boat in the land of 10,000 lakes -- without dominating his conference in recruiting the way he did at WMU. He's building burly lines, running the ball as much as humanly possible, and winning just enough recruiting battles to assure high-level depth in the receiving corps and secondary. He's containing the game as mentor Jim Tressel did, and he has built a team capable of sniffing out mistakes and taking full advantage of them. Nothing about this is unsustainable.

While a CFP trip isn't all that likely, the Gophers now have, per SP+, a 75% chance of finishing with 11 or more wins (not including bowls). And that's with a depth chart that is awfully sophomore-heavy. This run might be just beginning."


I've read this narrative a lot and I think it is not only inaccurate, but it actually short sells PJ.

PJ converted a group of really talented people, who likely were skeptical. You have to keep in mind that Coughlin, Winfield, Martin, Barber, Olsen, TJ, were not recruited by PJ. Just like he said at his initial press conference, they did not choose him. Sometimes it's easy to preach to the people who have already bought in. Bateman and Morgan, these are guys who were fluent in Fleckism when they were 16 years old.

PJ's ability to recruit and build a system is truly impressive. It's also incredibly impressive how he is able to convert people. He had a PACKED TCF stadium chanting Row the Boat. He was able to get Gopher fans to successfully pull off a "Maroon Out" and he was able to convert a group of upperclassmen that he did not recruit. That's impressive.
 




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