Keeping PJ Fleck at Minnesota

The problem is five of the eight guys you mentioned are DBs. I don't care how many gems he could find, if none of them are QBs or lineman I don't see it working out that well in the B1G. Also the empty cupboard at QB post Leidner would've been a huge hurdle for Claeys just as it was for Fleck. Not sure Tracey overcomes that as quickly as Fleck has.

Seth Green. Different offense. Nothing to overcome.
 

Seth Green. Different offense. Nothing to overcome.

If he was capable of playing the position at a competent level, he wouldn’t have been moved to WR (a position he hasn’t exactly mastered yet).


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The problem is five of the eight guys you mentioned are DBs. I don't care how many gems he could find, if none of them are QBs or lineman I don't see it working out that well in the B1G.

Leidner was far from a "gem" but they were still able to win a lot of games with him at QB. We still likely would have been able to recruit guys him or Harnish or Jordan Lynch at QB with Claeys as HC. Guys who may or may not be great but are good enough to win some games as long as we have a defense. I actually think if Seth Green would have had Jay Johnson as his OC, he would have turned out about the same as Leidner a passer but a much better runner.

Also 3 of our current 5 starting O-lineman either signed with Claeys as the HC or committed to him as the HC plus he had Corey Gaynor committed in the 2017 class who is starting for Miami and 3 of our D-line starters are Kill/Claeys commits. Actually at the start of the season 8 of our 11 starters were Kill/Claeys commits including our top 3 defenders plus two of our top 3 TE's, our current top 2 RB's, 3 starting OL as a mentioned, our All Big Ten WR and our wildcat QB.

It's hard for me to think there would have been a huge drop-off with Claeys when many if not most of our key contributors in this years team are from the previous regime along with the fact that most of our previous top guys from that regime where never highly recruited to begin with.
 

Seth Green. Different offense. Nothing to overcome.

Yes I'm sure there would've been no drop off between redshirt freshman Seth Green and senior Mith Leidner. Guy who couldn't win the starting job as HS senior was going to crush in the B1G as a redshirt frosh? Different offense, yeah a less successful one.
 

Yes I'm sure there would've been no drop off between redshirt freshman Seth Green and senior Mith Leidner. Guy who couldn't win the starting job as HS senior was going to crush in the B1G as a redshirt frosh? Different offense, yeah a less successful one.

Ya, Seth looked horrible running the wildcat last year. And Tracy also had a JC QB on campus for his offense.
We will never know if Tracy would have been more or less successful than PJ but to dismiss him is silly. He won 9 games. Many, many big name guys today are the same guys from his team.
 


Ya, Seth looked horrible running the wildcat last year. And Tracy also had a JC QB on campus for his offense.
We will never know if Tracy would have been more or less successful than PJ but to dismiss him is silly. He won 9 games. Many, many big name guys today are the same guys from his team.

You do realize that it is usually RBs that line up at QB in the wildcat? I don't know how looking good in the wildcat indicates Green would do well as a B1G qb. I'm not dismissing TC, but I do think he would've had a tough time in 2017 and 2018 due to the QB situation and tougher schedules. I don't think he would be doing as well this year, yes many of the starters are from the TC/Kill era, but Morgan, Bateman, and Autman Bell are pretty huge pieces. Yes TC won 9 games with some veteran players and favorable schedule, but I wouldn't have bet him repeating it as I wasn't convinced he could recruit well enough, or put together a strong enough offense. We'll never know.
 

I don't agree with that at all. I am very happy with Fleck and believe he can take our program to new heights but I believe if we would have held on to Tracy, we still would have been able to get that to that 8-9 win level most years.

Had we kept Tracey, he would have been able to tout a 9 win season, the best in 13 years, and an 8+ win season 3 out of the last 4 years to finish off the 2017 class and start the 2018 class(yea, yeah, I know Kill was the HC for two of two of those but same staff).

And even if recruiting would have taken a tail dive with Tracy, we would have always been able to get the Eric Murray's of the world, the Cedric Thompson's and Jimmy Ward's of the world, the BBC's, Damien Wilson's, David Cobb's, Maxx's Jalen Myrick's of the word etc. Guys that barely had any other offers. I mean Murray would probably have ended up at UW Whitewater if we wouldn't have taken him. No matter how poor of a recruiter Tracy would have been, we would have always be able to get those types of players.

My guess is even if Claeys had not been fired, the team would have had a down year (Fleck's first) and THEN he would have been fired by Coyle the first chance he had. He had no Big Ten caliber QB's, his DB's were raided hard by the dismissals from the scandals and he had no depth on either lines. Remember, in Fleck's first year they only had like 5 healthy OL during Spring ball. He didn't leave the cupboard bare by any means, but they were razor thin at several areas. I bet Fleck was stunned when he saw how bad the QB's were when he first got here. Claeys is a good football coach, but I am glad we have Fleck out there instead.
 

My guess is even if Claeys had not been fired, the team would have had a down year (Fleck's first) and THEN he would have been fired by Coyle the first chance he had. He had no Big Ten caliber QB's, his DB's were raided hard by the dismissals from the scandals and he had no depth on either lines. Remember, in Fleck's first year they only had like 5 healthy OL during Spring ball. He didn't leave the cupboard bare by any means, but they were razor thin at several areas. I bet Fleck was stunned when he saw how bad the QB's were when he first got here. Claeys is a good football coach, but I am glad we have Fleck out there instead.

Exactly, and much of the talent that was there was very young.
 

At least one coach argues MN wasn’t a total rebuild. Despite all that, if PJF finishes this season strong (9+ wins) I can’t see Coyle not extending him with a healthy raise. If the team ends up 8-4 all the buzz dries up for national vacancies and it will be a more conservative extension. As others pointed out (SON for one) the real question is whether PJF wants to be here and nobody including perhaps PJF himself knows that for sure.


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At least one coach argues MN wasn’t a total rebuild. Despite all that, if PJF finishes this season strong (9+ wins) I can’t see Coyle not extending him with a healthy raise. If the team ends up 8-4 all the buzz dries up for national vacancies and it will be a more conservative extension. As others pointed out (SON for one) the real question is whether PJF wants to be here and nobody including perhaps PJF himself knows that for sure.


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Very interesting perspective from Meyer. I remember after that 2014 game when he stated something to the effect of Minnesota being one of the toughest road environments late in the season. He had a lot of respect for the toughness of Kill's team.
 

Very interesting perspective from Meyer. I remember after that 2014 game when he stated something to the effect of Minnesota being one of the toughest road environments late in the season. He had a lot of respect for the toughness of Kill's team.

I remember he said something like "I challenge any team in the nation to come up and play here in November. This is a tough place to play." Crazy we only lost 31-24 and that team won the national championship.

The 2015 game was somewhat close as well, at least for part of the game.
 

Cool, maybe Urban will hire Claeys as his DC after he takes the USC job!

Honestly, I don’t think he likes Fleck, and he’s usually hesitant to give props to the current Big Ten coaches anyway. It’s not his style.


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At least one coach argues MN wasn’t a total rebuild. Despite all that, if PJF finishes this season strong (9+ wins) I can’t see Coyle not extending him with a healthy raise. If the team ends up 8-4 all the buzz dries up for national vacancies and it will be a more conservative extension. As others pointed out (SON for one) the real question is whether PJF wants to be here and nobody including perhaps PJF himself knows that for sure.


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It wasn’t a complete rebuild. The defense had talent, but lacked depth on the line. The QB position was a mess and outside of a young TJ, wr was a mess too. Maybe Claeys could’ve filled some of these gaps if given the chance, but I think it would be tough to match what Fleck quickly accomplished with these two positions.
 



It wasn’t a complete rebuild. The defense had talent, but lacked depth on the line. The QB position was a mess and outside of a young TJ, wr was a mess too. Maybe Claeys could’ve filled some of these gaps if given the chance, but I think it would be tough to match what Fleck quickly accomplished with these two positions.

Love what the coach has done, hope it continues, and hope he wants to stay. Lock him up if the results dictate.
 

Cool, maybe Urban will hire Claeys as his DC after he takes the USC job!

Honestly, I don’t think he likes Fleck, and he’s usually hesitant to give props to the current Big Ten coaches anyway. It’s not his style.


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I thought he was very complimentary of PJ and the MN staff when he sat down with Dinardo to talk about the MN RPO Offense.
 

It wasn’t a complete rebuild. The defense had talent, but lacked depth on the line. The QB position was a mess and outside of a young TJ, wr was a mess too. Maybe Claeys could’ve filled some of these gaps if given the chance, but I think it would be tough to match what Fleck quickly accomplished with these two positions.

Pretty accurate take on the situation.

No matter the coach the team was likely to take a step back from the 9 wins the prior season.
 

I thought he was very complimentary of PJ and the MN staff when he sat down with Dinardo to talk about the MN RPO Offense.

He did say Fleck can run faster than Claeys.
 

I thought he was very complimentary of PJ and the MN staff when he sat down with Dinardo to talk about the MN RPO Offense.

I’m guessing Urban likes and respects Kill and his old staff. However, I doubt he really knew the situation P.J. inherited. As others have stated, the cupboard wasn’t bare, but it was a bigger rebuild than Urban is stating.
 




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