Specifically, what is your minimum threshold to call 2017 season a success?

Exactly. Most don't improve the record in their first season. Western Michigan had a worse record in Flecks first year. I have no idea what to expect next season.
I believe he means over the last 3 years, new coaches improved the record in their first year.
I doubt many were replacing winning records, so that would make this comparison somewhat invalid. Let me stem the tide of "see, 9 wins" responders, but comparing records of teams with entirely different circumstances isn't the best measure. Common sense is probably the best.
 

Agree with all of this except the part where you say some folks on here want him to fail. I am yet to see anyone say anything like that. The debate seems more about how much should be expected when.
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Mennosota calling PJ Fleck "Panama Jack" is very supportive? :confused: It doesn't spell out his lack of support, but it sure does suggest he doesn't have it.
 

Claeys underperformed with the great roster he had, and now Fleck will be lucky to go .500 with the garbage roster Claeys handed him. And that makes perfect sense to you. Dear Lord.

Nailed it, nicely done.
 

Mennosota calling PJ Fleck "Panama Jack" is very supportive? :confused: It doesn't spell out his lack of support, but it sure does suggest he doesn't have it.

Still doesn't mean he wants Fleck to fail. I find it hard to believe any Gopher Fan would want that.


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So you think 5 wins is too much or too few?

The question was minimum threshold, and actually working in organizations that needed a culture change, it's not something than happens overnight. Especially in a 4 year program with athletes who were recruited by the old culture.

Some of you really don't understand this culture change. You all seem to think that everything was grand as if the winning percentage related to how good the culture was.

PJ Fleck is here to change culture first. After he does that, wins might become a side-product.
But there is no way we could keep going forward ignoring the culture we had where players were often injured, we led the league in targeting calls, and off the field we had a very visible scandal.

Culture change first.
If we win 5 games I'll be really happy, but this culture change will take years. That's why Fleck got a multi-year contract.
If changing culture was easy, they would have kept Claeys and tried to change it in some other manner.

Many of you who disagree with me seem to only want to talk about wins and losses.

This made me laugh, hard. Wow.
 


He didn't say that was happening in 2017.

Surprised by the number of sourpusses here - almost to the point of hoping Fleck falls on his face. Why would a Gophers fan want that?

Sense I have is the misconduct business had a lot less to do with TC being let go than is widely believed, that Admin thought that, long term, the program was headed for decline if TC stayed. Admin clearly wanted to go get someone like Fleck, suspect they didn't think they'd have a shot if they waited another year.

I suspect they were expecting a loss to Washington State - certainly would have been easier to "sell" had that happened - but when it didn't, they decided to go ahead with the plan regardless.

Gophers have a new guy who wants to be there and sell the program. He IS NOT BREWSTER - he's been a head coach, and been successful - so enough of that.

Don't like the rah rah? Who cares, if the kids do?

Fleck is the coach. He deserves an honest chance - which includes recognition that he's not perfect and there will be bumps.


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Of course not, but 8 regular season wins this year is a completely reasonable expectation. If you've read my posts, I explained my reasoning, and it's not because I hate Fleck. This is not a rebuild whatsoever. Close to half the new coaches in the last 3 years have improved the win total their first year, so the "there's always a step back" argument just is not true.

He should have a shot at the Rose Bowl in 2019.
 

So you think 5 wins is too much or too few?

The question was minimum threshold, and actually working in organizations that needed a culture change, it's not something than happens overnight. Especially in a 4 year program with athletes who were recruited by the old culture.

Some of you really don't understand this culture change. You all seem to think that everything was grand as if the winning percentage related to how good the culture was.

PJ Fleck is here to change culture first. After he does that, wins might become a side-product.
But there is no way we could keep going forward ignoring the culture we had where players were often injured, we led the league in targeting calls, and off the field we had a very visible scandal.

Culture change first.
If we win 5 games I'll be really happy, but this culture change will take years. That's why Fleck got a multi-year contract.
If changing culture was easy, they would have kept Claeys and tried to change it in some other manner.

Many of you who disagree with me seem to only want to talk about wins and losses.

Again, I ask - how are injuries part of the culture? It's football - people get hurt. Now, I accept there are things you can do with strength and conditioning, therapy, etc to minimize the impact or effect of injuries - but it's a huge stretch to call that part of the team's culture. By that standard, the food you serve at the training table is part of the team's culture.

To me, the term culture is about attitude or mental approach. I get the argument that some people believe Claeys was too lax on discipline, and that led to the sex party incident - hence the calls to change the team culture.

But I cannot see how any reasonable person could think that injuries - and/or injury prevention - is part of the team culture.

37score makes it sound like the Gopher program was this horror show. There was one freakin' incident. the vast majority of players stayed out of trouble, went to class and got good grades. But the "culture changers" ignore that, because it doesn't fit their narrative that Fleck is riding in on a white horse to save the Gopher FB program.
 

You stated that the event of Sept 2nd was because TC didn't set the right standards. I am now asking you if PJF is responsible for the 2 freshmen on his team that committed armed robbery as well. I would say no to both, but certainly you won't use a different standard for PJF. Certainly not.

Stop side-stepping and answer.

I would not try to hard to box this guy in. He has been nibbling around the edges for many posts, then finally declared his outrage about the way Claeys did not indoctrinate the players up front against sex and then punish them before anything happened, just in case.

This guy is drawn to this topic like a moth to a flame, as is the other Gopherhole "poster" that joined his cause in recent minutes, so chances are both are the same guy that was posting under similar identities until the hammer went down a few days ago.

The alter ego posters try to play it soft for a while, but when pushed by us, like you just did Spoffin, the true agenda comes out and we learn who they really are.

The official backing behind the recent wave of Title IX witch hunts and Kangaroo Kourts will end soon, so we can only hope things get better. I cannot imagine what drives some of these posters who accept the "college rape culture" fallacy, even to today after it has been so heavily discredited.

1 in 4 women being in "raped" actually is closer to 1 in 100. Total BS Guilty until proven innocent- total BS

Read some of the material put out by the radical feminists about heterosexual sex and the role they think the male plays in it and get back to me if you think I am an extremist.
 

You stated that the event of Sept 2nd was because TC didn't set the right standards. I am now asking you if PJF is responsible for the 2 freshmen on his team that committed armed robbery as well. I would say no to both, but certainly you won't use a different standard for PJF. Certainly not.

Stop side-stepping and answer.

I would not try to hard to box this guy in. He has been nibbling around the edges for many posts, then finally declared his outrage about the way Claeys did not indoctrinate the players up front against sex and then punish them before anything happened, just in case.

This guy is drawn to this topic like a moth to a flame, as is the other Gopherhole "poster" that joined his cause in recent minutes, so chances are both are the same guy that was posting under similar identities until the hammer went down a few days ago.

The alter ego posters try to play it soft for a while, but when pushed by us, like you just did Spoffin, the true agenda comes out and we learn who they really are.

The official backing behind the recent wave of Title IX witch hunts and Kangaroo Kourts will end soon, so we can only hope things get better. I cannot imagine what drives some of these posters who accept the "college rape culture" fallacy, even to today after it has been so heavily discredited.

1 in 4 women being in "raped" actually is closer to 1 in 100. Total BS Guilty until proven innocent- total BS

Read some of the material put out by the radical feminists about heterosexual sex and the role they think the male plays in it and get back to me if you think I am an extremist.
If you're drinking, best to stop now. Interesting conspiracy theory there though. Care to tell us your thoughts on who really assasinated JFK?
BTW, I'm a Conservative, which has absolutely nothing to do with my view of how TC handled the issue.
 



Again, I ask - how are injuries part of the culture? It's football - people get hurt. Now, I accept there are things you can do with strength and conditioning, therapy, etc to minimize the impact or effect of injuries - but it's a huge stretch to call that part of the team's culture. By that standard, the food you serve at the training table is part of the team's culture.

To me, the term culture is about attitude or mental approach. I get the argument that some people believe Claeys was too lax on discipline, and that led to the sex party incident - hence the calls to change the team culture.

But I cannot see how any reasonable person could think that injuries - and/or injury prevention - is part of the team culture.

37score makes it sound like the Gopher program was this horror show. There was one freakin' incident. the vast majority of players stayed out of trouble, went to class and got good grades. But the "culture changers" ignore that, because it doesn't fit their narrative that Fleck is riding in on a white horse to save the Gopher FB program.

And that one incident was before school even started, involving mostly freshman who just got here. You can't argue 37guy it's gonna take Fleck YEARS to change the culture but Tracy is supposed to be able to have it established before incoming freshman go to a class. AND we don't know for sure they did anything to create an incident. How it was handled is the biggest incident.
 

Again, I ask - how are injuries part of the culture? It's football - people get hurt. Now, I accept there are things you can do with strength and conditioning, therapy, etc to minimize the impact or effect of injuries - but it's a huge stretch to call that part of the team's culture. By that standard, the food you serve at the training table is part of the team's culture.

To me, the term culture is about attitude or mental approach. I get the argument that some people believe Claeys was too lax on discipline, and that led to the sex party incident - hence the calls to change the team culture.

But I cannot see how any reasonable person could think that injuries - and/or injury prevention - is part of the team culture.
Changing culture = changing the mental approach to injury prevention. Changing the mental approach to the food you put in your body.

See, it wasn't that hard...
 

Of course not, but 8 regular season wins this year is a completely reasonable expectation. If you've read my posts, I explained my reasoning, and it's not because I hate Fleck. This is not a rebuild whatsoever. Close to half the new coaches in the last 3 years have improved the win total their first year, so the "there's always a step back" argument just is not true.

He should have a shot at the Rose Bowl in 2019.

Who is the Quarterback we should be excited about in 2018? The Wide Receiver? How about at Tight End, will Lingen ever be the same guy? On the Offensive Line, we lose our best OL in Pirsig and our starting C transferred. On defense, the corner position is completely unproven after being a strength of the team in recent years.

For 2019, who do you like as an interior Defensive Lineman for a Rose Bowl team?

I am not saying these positions can't be maintained or improved upon in '18/'19, just that there has never been any buzz that we had great talent coming up behind the starters at any of these positions.
 

Changing culture = changing the mental approach to injury prevention. Changing the mental approach to the food you put in your body.

See, it wasn't that hard...

You can prevent injury by your mental approach? Really- did you make that up yourself or did you just change some words in a recent self-help book that you read? Completely inane.


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You can prevent injury by your mental approach? Really- did you make that up yourself or did you just change some words in a recent self-help book that you read? Completely inane.
If you change your approach to practice regimens, weight lifting, etc., you can certainly prevent injury. Not eliminate them completely, but I can guarantee there won't be 19 offseason surgeries next winter.
 

If you change your approach to practice regimens, weight lifting, etc., you can certainly prevent injury. Not eliminate them completely, but <b>I can guarantee there won't be 19 offseason surgeries next winter.</b>

I feel much better now.


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Admins, can we ban this guy?

I have repeatedly tried to clarify my reasoning, and he has called me lame. He's also called what I've written gobbledygook instead of actually discussing real facts and actual on-goings which negatively affect the culture at the U. Also, he's throwing terms around like verbal diarrhea, again without contesting any fact based evidence.

This is breaking the terms and conditions since he is not responding in a clear manner devoid of insults and it's affecting the culture of this board in a negative way (or could long term).

I don't want to be spamming the board with repeated post after repeated post explaining how hard it is to change culture and win 5 or more games with a first year QB and all the other changes PJ has to put up with.

"Mommy, make the bad man stop ! "
 

It's obvious by the type of responses we are seeing on here, there are many who want to see Fleck fail by some made up "consensus threshold".

Also, many of you seem to have no clue what culture is, which is why none of you seem to understand the undertaking that it is to change it.
We've had a non-Championship culture for about 50 years.

Now you expect a new head coach to change that over summer break and somehow manage to win more than 5-6 games?


Some of you are like, "Oh, things weren't so bad".

It doesn't matter. If you are under going a culture change that was type B, type D, Type W, and you want to change it to type A. It doesn't matter how successful the old one was because it's a culture change.


At least be respectful in your responses instead of trying to start a flame war which many Fleck-haters seem to be doing by name calling and putting up false quotes to diminish the opinions who are looking at this more realistically.
.
 


I believe he means over the last 3 years, new coaches improved the record in their first year.
I doubt many were replacing winning records, so that would make this comparison somewhat invalid. Let me stem the tide of "see, 9 wins" responders, but comparing records of teams with entirely different circumstances isn't the best measure. Common sense is probably the best.

Yep I was aware of that. It happens less than 50% of the time per his numbers. Had Kill and Claeys left the program with more offensive talent then I could believe some of these optimistic predictions. Maybe I'm underestimating our talent on that side of the ball or the impact Fleck and the new offensive staff will have. I hope so. I'm also worried about our corners. Like I said this is a tough season to predict, at least right now anyway. After the spring and fall camp we'll know more.
 

It's obvious by the type of responses we are seeing on here, there are many who want to see Fleck fail by some made up "consensus threshold".

Also, many of you seem to have no clue what culture is, which is why none of you seem to understand the undertaking that it is to change it.
We've had a non-Championship culture for about 50 years.

Now you expect a new head coach to change that over summer break and somehow manage to win more than 5-6 games?


Some of you are like, "Oh, things weren't so bad".

It doesn't matter. If you are under going a culture change that was type B, type D, Type W, and you want to change it to type A. It doesn't matter how successful the old one was because it's a culture change.


At least be respectful in your responses instead of trying to start a flame war which many Fleck-haters seem to be doing by name calling and putting up false quotes to diminish the opinions who are looking at this more realistically.
.

This made me laugh, thanks.
 

Was away over the weekend. What a thread!!

PJF was an exciting hire. Can't wait to see what he can do with our team this coming Spring and next fall. Excited for it, but then again I have been excited for the football season every year.

There is talent on this team. Yes we lost some guys, but every program does. Guys will step up and fill in. The defense will carry the team to some victories this coming season, especially early in the year, while the offense, mainly the QB, gets acclimated to playing. PJF will get the offense to improve over the course of the season and the D should be similar to what we have grown accustom to over the past few years. Special teams will remain strong. With all of that and a favorable start to the schedule, I believe we have the ability to win 7 - 10 games this year.

This whole argument that the culture needs to change is overblown. The culture doesn't need to change, it needs an adjustment. The direction Kill and the Claeys put this team on was the correct one. The team had academic success, on field success, and the overall talent within the program was solid. It was one game, but the win over WSU to me, showed just how great the culture within the program was. The team was in great turmoil heading into that game. Had the culture not been solid, they would have been blown out. Instead you saw a team come together and pull off a stunning win that honestly nobody outside of that team saw coming. That to me is great culture.

PJF can build on that with the returners and continue the upward trend for the program.
 

Culture culture culture culture culture culture culture culture culture culture culture.

Does anyone actually think they know what the "culture" on the team is?
 

Yep I was aware of that. It happens less than 50% of the time per his numbers. Had Kill and Claeys left the program with more offensive talent then I could believe some of these optimistic predictions. Maybe I'm underestimating our talent on that side of the ball or the impact Fleck and the new offensive staff will have. I hope so. I'm also worried about our corners. Like I said this is a tough season to predict, at least right now anyway. After the spring and fall camp we'll know more.

Seriously doubt it will, but you got yourself some cover through mid-August anyway.
 

Seriously doubt it will, but you got yourself some cover through mid-August anyway.

I'm not covering my ass. It's a coaching regime change with Claeys and Fleck being polar opposites personality wise. Your prediction, like mine or anyone else's is worthless.
 

We didn't lose that many good SRs.

Every year, teams lose SRs, we lost a lot less than most teams. I have news for you, next year, we are going to lose some seniors too.

Our schedule got a little tougher.

But keep hedging your bet.

I tend to disagree with this take. While we didn't lose a huge number of seniors, the ones we lost were usually the best at their position on the team. Myrick was our best CB, Travis our best Safety, Lynn was probably our most consistent LB, the Ekpe brothers were multi-year starters, Pirsig and Moore (I realize Moore transferred) were our best o-lineman, Wolitarsky was our best WR, and Mitch at QB.
 

And that one incident was before school even started, involving mostly freshman who just got here. You can't argue 37guy it's gonna take Fleck YEARS to change the culture but Tracy is supposed to be able to have it established before incoming freshman go to a class. AND we don't know for sure they did anything to create an incident. How it was handled is the biggest incident.
Actually, you can. Claeys was taking over from Kill and the staff largely remained in place except 2 players. The staff has been recruiting these kids since they were juniors in HS. Some of these S-As were early enrollees, some were Sophs. They were all here by June training, being familiarized with the "culture", and associating with upperclassmen to assimilate into the program. The entire coaching staff has access to the during summer sessions, albeit a less than in-season for most except the Strength staff, but the head coach and the Strength staff are considered the primary communicators or the culture and expectations.
Prior to allowing freshman to take recruits out, player hosts are instructed as to what is acceptable and what is not on a recruiting visit. The coaching staff has plenty of opportunity to impress upon freshman and sophs what the appropriate culture of the program is.
As for it being one incident, there were at least 6 players involved. That's 5% of the entire team. Not one of those S-As had the common sense and understanding of the TC's team culture to see a situation developing and say "this isn't cool" or "this could lead to trouble"?
5% of the team, 1 out of 20 S-As, were involved in this situation. I'd like to think it's an aberration, but if 6 out of 6 players involved chose this path, why should we assume that all other S-As, had they been involved, would certainly chose another path. Maybe they would have, but TC was just unlucky and drew these 6 to take care of this recruit.
In my view, I don't think these kids are bad or aberrant. I think these kids made some bad choices, had a seemingly willing participant, and made some immature decisions. They didn't plan and carry out a robbery. I would bet these are good kids that weren't thinking. Why weren't they thinking?
IMO, they weren't thinking b/c TC and the coaching staff failed to impress upon them what the culture of the program is and supposed to be. TC took Kill's program and tweaked the Brick by Brick culture, parts of which include personal character. Some S-A's either weren't listening, didn't care, or didn't value the culture. Those failures don't usually reveal themselves in one event, but in smaller events along the way until one big one shows the public that there was a failure.
It's possible that one bad player led the others astray and this was completely isolated, but it's more likely what I outlined above. Either way, TC was responsible for the conduct of his team. Dismissal worthy?, probably not. But once he tried to side with the players after siding with the admin, he made his own fate.
This was a failure of the culture that TC had responsibility for since October 2015 as well as a extremely clumsy handling of the boycott situation demonstrating his lack of preparedness to be a head coach. I'm not saying he's a bad person, just that he lacked the experience or personality to lead the program and develop a strong culture that leads his players to make better choices.
Will PJ Fleck's culture lead to better player conduct and more wins? I don't know for sure, but his demonstrated history suggests that he has a better chance. However, it will be a significant culture change. A complete overhaul, which is quite different than the tweaking that was done by TC.
 

I'm not covering my ass. It's a coaching regime change with Claeys and Fleck being polar opposites personality wise. Your prediction, like mine or anyone else's is worthless.

Ummm, they are useless until the games are played and the season ends. That's why they're called predictions.

Our expectations clearly don't match. I'm much more optimistic. Last thing I want is for Fleck to not be successful in building on the upward trend in place. I think he can do it without a step back, you don't.
 

Culture culture culture culture culture culture culture culture culture culture culture.

Does anyone actually think they know what the "culture" on the team is?

Nebraska has culture. AGRIculture.

Beat Wisconsin and call it good for the first year.
 

Ummm, they are useless until the games are played and the season ends. That's why they're called predictions.

Our expectations clearly don't match. I'm much more optimistic. Last thing I want is for Fleck to not be successful in building on the upward trend in place. I think he can do it without a step back, you don't.

No I think he WILL keep the upward trend in place without a step back as I'm confident he's a better coach than Claeys. I just dont agree that a worse record than last year equals a step back. That's a short sighted take IMO.
 

No I think he WILL keep the upward trend in place without a step back as I'm confident he's a better coach than Claeys. I just dont agree that a worse record than last year equals a step back. That's a short sighted take IMO.
This whole argument is a lot of semantics. What does winning less games in 2017 mean... Culture change? Coaching staff change? Harder schedule? Less talent? Yes, Yes, Yes, Maybe, and all of the above. Comparing 2016 to 2017 is comparing apples to oranges.
 




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