Where would you rank Fleck in the new Big Ten West coaching pecking order

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Fickell is the best coach for sure…… wait a minute who the hell is he again.
 

There is no point in comparing anything to "the West".

The West is dead. Next year it rides off into the sunset.


Ranking 1-16 is the appropriate thread.
 



Gophers_4life said:
There is no point in comparing anything to "the West".

The West is dead. Next year it rides off into the sunset.


Ranking 1-16 is the appropriate thread.
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There is still 1 more year left (or do you know definitively something different?), THEN it rides off into the sunset!
 


PJ Fleck has lost games with some of his questionable in-game calls, and from critical injuries. That is what separated him from the Big Ten West Crown.

He is still learning. He better do it quickly. The new hires at Wisconsin and Nebraska just made it more competitive.
 



Fickell is 5-7 vs the B1G including 3-5 as the Ohio St head coach
Rhule is 1-2 vs the B1G

They are both at the bottom until proven otherwise.
 

Some guy said:
I think Bret a bit overrated right now.
He went 8-4 (5-4) with a roster he didn’t recruit or were 1 year stop gaps like the QB.


He won the big ten with the machine wisconsin he inherited combined with Ohio state, penn state, and Michigan all being down or on sanctions at the same time.

He was 11-29 in conference at Arkansas. His best year was year 3 with the old coach’s players.


I think he is a good coach. But I think 2022 Illinois is closer to 2021 Michigan state than it is to 2006-2009 wisconsin.
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Fair enough but he’s 2-0 against Minnesota the last two years and regardless of the situations accomplished a TON more than fleck has, hence my ranking.
 

gopherbadgerman said:
Fair enough but he’s 2-0 against Minnesota the last two years and regardless of the situations accomplished a TON more than fleck has, hence my ranking.
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My post said absolutely nothing about fleck.
 




gopherbadgerman said:
It did not but that’s a reason I ranked Bert so high, and you had said he was overrated
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He is overrated right now.

I think generally people think of him correctly. For some reason people think the guy who lost to Indiana and Michigan state is infallible this year
 

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Some guy said:
He is overrated right now.

I think generally people think of him correctly. For some reason people think the guy who lost to Indiana and Michigan state is infallible this year
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could be never know. In 2-3 years we’ll know a lot more
 


Halsey Hall said:
I put Fleck last. He's not a good game manager and his offenses are offensive. He is too caught up in all those cliches. Should not have kept Athan on the bench most of the year. Just don't think he's that bright.
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Tell us how you really feel...
 


The completely subjective analyses listed above will be replaced by objective data when USC and UCLA join the BIG and there are no more divisions.
The top three or four in the BIG will go to the hallowed group of twelve for the playoffs.
The rest of the teams and their coaches will be relegated to also-ran.
The WI AD saw that writing on the wall and decided WI needed an upgrade right away.
There will be no more West cupcakes leavened by a couple of East crossovers.
It will be nine conference games with computer scheduling with one or two rivalry games.
 

Very difficult exercise...if you were the AD and you must pick one of those guys to be your head coach.... today, I'd pick PJ. I know the most about him. He has a bunch of coaching faults but he teaches his players about life, he genuinely cares, they go to class. He works hard. He's not satisfied winning 8, 9, 10 games. Basically, I trust him. And I trust him to do better.

If you put him last...there are reasons to slot him there too. Solid group of coaches...all with reasons they could be number one. If I could trade, I wouldn't. USC joins...I don't know a huge amount about Lincoln Riley but I'd roll with him and live with the results. That trade. I'd make.
 

Isn’t Bielema the only one that has failed at one of his college head coaching stops?
 

El Amin Fan said:
If you take the overall package of a coach into consideration - recruiting, game day management, player development, etc., where would you rank our guy Fleck with the revamped Big Ten West coaching ladder?

Obviously we don't know how Rhule or Fickell will do in their new roles and recruiting territories, but still interesting to see where Fleck stacks up.

Ironically, as I look at the BTW vs BTE, I think the West now has better coaches top to bottom, the BTE just has a few helmet schools that cover up a lot of coaching inadequacies.

I would go:

1. Bielema - I can't stand the guy, but he's proven he can win and recruit and I think if he stays at Illinois he'll build them into a regular atop the BTW.

2. Luke Fickell - He took Cinci to the CFP for gosh sakes. Whether he can build the same success at uw remains to be seen, but hard not to admire his combination of recruiting and coaching.

3. Kirk Ferentz - steady eddie and a long term coach. No idea how much he has left, but he's the Dean of Big Ten Coaches and his combo works and works consistently.

4. Matt Rhule - hard to know how the fit will be, but he's already turned around two very different geographical programs in Temple and Baylor. The blueprint is there, even if Nebraska isn't what it used to be.

5. Pat Fitzgerald - Few coaches in America do more with less and while they have wild swings in success, fricking NW has won the West twice in the last 5 years. Next year they need to move back up the standings, but this guy has a formula that works.

6. PJ Fleck - his ranking isn't a slight as I love the guy. But this is a tough list to compare him to. Recruiting isn't as good nationally as I expected and his in-game decisions have been below average at times, but I think his player development has been good. I hope he's here for a long time and I hope we can confidently move him up this list.

7. Jeff Brohm - again, not a slight and I realize he's in the BT title game this week. But it's just a tough group of coaches ahead of him.
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I’m going to start by saying I think Wisconsin made a great hire, but if you’re ranking Fickell that high because he made Cincinnati go undefeated and to the playoffs you better rank PJ Fleck #1. He had Western Michigan… WESTERN MICHIGAN… undefeated and to the Cotton Bowl.

In all seriousness, there isn’t a bad coach in the Big Ten West.
 


Gophers1992 said:
If this is based on current abilities rather than track record I'd put him above Fitz for sure, probably Ferentz, and probably Rhule. Bielema is close. This could be done a lot of different ways, but if I had to I'd go:

Fickell
Bielema
PJ
Rhule
Ferentz
Brohm
Fitz
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Fickell's one year as the interim HC at Ohio State (2011) resulted in a 6-7 season. It followed a 12-1 campaign (2010) after which Jim Tressel resigned due to the "scandal" of players selling their memorabilia. In 2012, OSU went 12-0 under Urban Meyer. Pretty sure I could have coached that Buckeye team to a 6-7 record in 2011. He has done great at Cincy, but his power 5 year as HC was a mess.
 

This is a fascinating question to me. I could see the coaches ranked in so many different ways. I don't where to rank Rhule or especially Fickell. Look at Fickell's run at Cincy this year: A 4 point win over USF at home, a 2 point wins at SMU, a 2 point win over ECU. Lose a couple of those games and what does Fickell look like at 7-5 in that conference?

I really think it's tough to know where to put PJ. I feel like there's so much potential upside with PJ while a guy like Fitzgerald might be on the decline partly due to Northwestern being at even more of a disadvantage in the age of the portal. That said, PJ doesn't seem able or willing to access that upside. His gameday coaching is really negating some of the other really positive qualities of his coaching. For example I was suprised and impressed by how the team came out to play against Wisconsin after that horrific fluke/choke job against Iowa. Then they somehow only lead 10-6 at halftime in Madison in a game they were really controlling. The timeout and play calling sequence before halftime really minimized their chances of a TD. There are way too many games where the scoreboard is not reflecting the success on the field. Of the 5 returning coaches there is an argument for the other 4 to all be ranked above PJ. Brohm might have the weakest case, but he's just won the West and seems to have more notable conference wins than PJ. I don't think I'd put PJ last, but that's a strong group of coaches with no clear weak link and PJ needs to "change his best" in order to move the program forward and improve his own perceived standing in college football.
 

Plato said:
The completely subjective analyses listed above will be replaced by objective data when USC and UCLA join the BIG and there are no more divisions.
The top three or four in the BIG will go to the hallowed group of twelve for the playoffs.
The rest of the teams and their coaches will be relegated to also-ran.
The WI AD saw that writing on the wall and decided WI needed an upgrade right away.
There will be no more West cupcakes leavened by a couple of East crossovers.
It will be nine conference games with computer scheduling with one or two rivalry games.
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On the contrary. Some teams in the west are going to have easier schedules some years because of this.
The conference is so big

When Minnesota’s 2029 schedule is:
Iowa
Wisconsin
Purdue
Indiana
Rutgers
Maryland
Michigan state
UCLA
Northwestern

Are you going to complain the lack of divisions led to a soft schedule?
 

Some guy said:
On the contrary. Some teams in the west are going to have easier schedules some years because of this.
The conference is so big

When Minnesota’s 2029 schedule is:
Iowa
Wisconsin
Purdue
Indiana
Rutgers
Maryland
Michigan state
UCLA
Northwestern

Are you going to complain the lack of divisions led to a soft schedule?
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You misunderstood.
I am completely in favor of no divisions with one or two rivalry games and a nine or ten conference game schedule.
That would have the potential to make the teams in the West have more difficult schedules than they now currently have because USC and USC are currently stronger teams than any of the West teams and most of the East teams and will be added to the pool.
Your imagined MN schedule seven years from now is simply imaginary mixed in with wishful thinking and is irrelevant.
In the future, the goal of every West team will not be the participation prize of winning the West but ending up in the top twelve in the country.
 

Plato said:
You misunderstood.
I am completely in favor of no divisions with one or two rivalry games and a nine or ten conference game schedule.
That would have the potential to make the teams in the West have more difficult schedules than they now currently have because USC and USC are currently stronger teams than any of the West teams and most of the East teams and will be added to the pool.
Your imagined MN schedule seven years from now is simply imaginary mixed in with wishful thinking and is irrelevant.
In the future, the goal of every West team will not be the participation prize of winning the West but ending up in the top twelve in the country.
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What you just said has nothing to do what I said.
If you have two locked rivals in a 20 team league you can still get a really soft schedule. In fact, you can get an even softer schedule than the current west teams get.

If you go 10-2 in the big ten, it doesn’t matter your schedule, you’re going to be top 20 in the country regardless. Top 10 in a year like this year.
 

Some guy said:
And this isn’t me saying he is a bad coach. I’m just not ready to crown Illinois perennial contenders in the conference
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Yes, and no one should after 1 good season.
 

MNfootballfan said:
I’m going to start by saying I think Wisconsin made a great hire, but if you’re ranking Fickell that high because he made Cincinnati go undefeated and to the playoffs you better rank PJ Fleck #1. He had Western Michigan… WESTERN MICHIGAN… undefeated and to the Cotton Bowl.

In all seriousness, there isn’t a bad coach in the Big Ten West.
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What an outstanding post. Thanks for pointing that out!
 

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