PJ Fleck has become Jerry Kill

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GopherWeatherGuy said:
I’ve been a big PJ fan since he was hired but this team is heading in the wrong direction. Talent is trending downward and this is the worst coaching I’ve seen since the Brewster era.
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I agree with your central premise: this is Fleck's worst coaching job. I'm not on board with the "talent is trending downward" statement yet. One very disappointing year is not a trend. This year's team definitely is worse than we expected but it's certainly possible that next year's team could be be better than the lower pre-season expectations that all but the perennial rose colored glasses folks should have.

Coach Ben Johnson received two commitments this season who were well above our usual recruit rankings. I don't see why coach Fleck couldn't land prep or transfer recruits of higher stature in the near future.
 
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GeorgiaGopher said:
Fleck is an ok coach that will lead the Gophers to a non New Years bowl game almost every year. I will not give him credit for 2019 because he did not recruit the studs on that team I look at what his recruits have done and it's just ok. If you fine with ok then he's the coach for you.
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Were the players on the 2019 team coached up at all?
 

cjbfbp said:
I agree with your central premise: this is Fleck's worst coaching job. I'm not on board with the "talent is trending downward" statement yet. One very disappointing year is not a trend. This year's team definitely is worse than we expected but it's certainly possible that next year's team could be be better than the lower pre-season expectations that all but the perennial rose colored glasses folks should have.

Coach Ben Johnson received two commitments this season who were well above our usual recruit rankings. I don't see why coach Fleck couldn't land prep or transfer recruits of higher stature.
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Talk of firing seems very premature. With our track record of hiring coaches, I'd be surprised if our next coach has a better big ten record six years in than PJ does. It is frustrating when you have a bad year, but plenty of teams have been rewarded for sticking with a coach through a down year or a few. There were stretches where people talked about firing Lucia, then he came back and gave us 2 frozen fours in 3 years. Iowa has gone through lots of stretches where people were frustrated with Ferentz, and he always seems to come back with another great year.
 

GeorgiaGopher said:
Fleck is an ok coach that will lead the Gophers to a non New Years bowl game almost every year. I will not give him credit for 2019 because he did not recruit the studs on that team I look at what his recruits have done and it's just ok. If you fine with ok then he's the coach for you.
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That is not entirely true! Mo, Tanner, Bateman, CrAB, Big Dan, Dunlap, St. Juste and Howden were Fleck recruits and all starters that year. I think there were others who I'm just not remembering.
 



kg21 said:
When we got the pick, and he settled for 3, I'm looking at him as not a guy that ever gets you there.

And you want to know the funny part..........he thought 3 would be huge there as we would play good defense against them......LMAO

I'm as down as ever on fleck.

We are in deep shit next year and have a weak recruiting class.

Oh well.
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I made the “not a guy that ever gets you there” assessment during the Iowa game in 2019 when we were a win away from winning the West and going to the Rose Bowl and his testes sucked up into his chest cavity.
 

WindyCityGopher said:
I made the “not a guy that ever gets you there” assessment during the Iowa game in 2019 when we were a win away from winning the West and going to the Rose Bowl and his testes sucked up into his chest cavity.
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I was right before everybody else here!
 

GeorgiaGopher said:
Fleck is an ok coach that will lead the Gophers to a non New Years bowl game almost every year. I will not give him credit for 2019 because he did not recruit the studs on that team I look at what his recruits have done and it's just ok. If you fine with ok then he's the coach for you.
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He didn't recruit Bateman, Morgan, most of the online? Strange
 




Spaulding!No! said:
I was right before everybody else here!
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Bullshit. A lot of people saw that game, the opportunities it presented for the program, and called out the absolutely weak and passive game plan against a team they should’ve beat. Go back and read that game thread, it was being noted in real time.
 

Fleck just has to figure out what has gone wrong and then fix it. He can do that. We better not get beaten by interim coaches.
 

WindyCityGopher said:
Bullshit. A lot of people saw that game, the opportunities it presented for the program, and called out the absolutely weak and passive game plan against a team they should’ve beat. Go back and read that game thread, it was being noted in real time.
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Are you new here? You never take Spaulding!No! seriously. He's like of the perennially irritating class clown.
 




cjbfbp said:
Are you new here? You never take Spaulding!No! seriously. He's like of the perennially irritating class clown.
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I would say he is more the perennially irritating kid that THINKS he is the class clown but isn't funny at all.
 

GeorgiaGopher said:
Fleck is an ok coach that will lead the Gophers to a non New Years bowl game almost every year. I will not give him credit for 2019 because he did not recruit the studs on that team I look at what his recruits have done and it's just ok. If you fine with ok then he's the coach for you.
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He recruited every one of them to stay. And he recruited Bateman, from Georgia, so.... you're dumb.
 

I was nervous from the get-go when PJ would play down to crappy non conference teams like 'jer did and beat them by 3 with a 4th quarter comeback...

All vanilla offense where the playbook could fit on a post-it note.

Yesterday was no different. It's like they ran 4-5 plays all game and became so predictable. I know you have a frosh but you ALWAYS have to play to win, whatever it takes even if you have to dust off the last 10 pages of the playbook. Athan is a smart kid with a helluva lot of talent. Put him in a position to WIN. Not to lose by as few points as possible. IT. NEVER. WORKS.
 

- Fleck threw himself on the sword after the game, admitted that his game plan did not work. He clearly wanted to ease AK into the game. He thought he could thrash Penn State on the ground, just like what Michigan did the week before. Not necessarily a bad approach in my opinion.

- You are not going to win many games when the offensive line has FIVE false starts in one half. Very undisciplined.

- Last night was a rough game, no doubt. It was going to be really tough even if everyone was healthy. I had this game has a loss in the beginning of the season. Gophers were in it at halftime and I thought AK handled himself really well for his first start.

- Seeing a lot of people on twitter calling for Fleck to be fired, that is ridiculous. First off, Fleck has done incredible things for the program in his six years. This is a rough stretch for sure, but looking back, I'm not sure we are better than Illinois and Penn State. That Purdue game still haunts me. Also, do people really think the U could get someone better than him? The program is in good hands, I have no doubt P.J. will work hard to get weaknesses fixed up.

- A long with that last note, I expect Fleck to hit the transfer portal hard looking for receivers and D linemen. They are glaring weaknesses right now. Receivers struggle getting open and we are not getting pressure on the QB.

Just some of my thoughts.
 



amk8930 said:
I’m sad to say that the Gophers will not win another game this year. I’m a curse and bad luck. 😣😔😢😭

Fleck is on the verge of getting canned along with the rest of the staff. He’s on the hot seat and will be fired sooner than later.
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You need to up your troll game so please slither back to the skunkyville board where you belong!
 


Gophers7NatTitlesBadgers0 said:
No offense, but I really hope Nashville or Vegas are the worst case scenarios!
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Big Ten doesn't go to Vegas this season. Big Ten goes to the Duke's Mayo Bowl (Charlotte NC) instead this year. Unless we perform better than expected for the remainder of the season, I'm guessing the Pinstripe or Duke's Mayo, both against ACC opponents, are the likely destinations. Perhaps at 8-4 we could go to Nashville. I don't think they'd send us to the Guaranteed Rate two years in a row.
 


Gopher028 said:
I was nervous from the get-go when PJ would play down to crappy non conference teams like 'jer did and beat them by 3 with a 4th quarter comeback...

All vanilla offense where the playbook could fit on a post-it note.

Yesterday was no different. It's like they ran 4-5 plays all game and became so predictable. I know you have a frosh but you ALWAYS have to play to win, whatever it takes even if you have to dust off the last 10 pages of the playbook. Athan is a smart kid with a helluva lot of talent. Put him in a position to WIN. Not to lose by as few points as possible. IT. NEVER. WORKS.
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So, our wide receivers can’t beat man coverage. We did have one wide open throw, which Athan nailed. Bryce W came out of the backfield uncovered because of blitz pressure (naked screen?). The uncontested throw went for 19 yards. I don’t think we tried that play again. Maybe we did and I missed it or the RB was covered. But it seemed like a brief flash of successful creativity that vanished soon, replaced by mind-numbing predictability. Predictability works when you can overpower; predictability is the kiss of desth when you can’t. Creativity and unpredictability help you beat a team that is physically better. Coaching had a lot to do with this loss … or, I should say the feeling of frustration after this loss. It feels like we didn’t give it our best shot in offense. No scheme adjustments (at least to the untrained eye).
 
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We kinda knew PJ wasn’t the best game day coach when he was hired. He was hired because he was a great motivator and we thought he could sell the program. He was the #1 recruiter in the MAC and we hoped to get a piece of that.

We”re not getting any of that anymore. The classes he inherited are gone, we are recruiting at the bottom of the big ten again, and PJ is still not a great football mind.
 

mnsportsgeek said:
We kinda knew PJ wasn’t the best game day coach when he was hired. He was hired because he was a great motivator and we thought he could sell the program. He was the #1 recruiter in the MAC and we hoped to get a piece of that.

We”re not getting any of that anymore. The classes he inherited are gone, we are recruiting at the bottom of the big ten again, and PJ is still not a great football mind.
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This is one of the worst pieces of analysis I’ve seen as to why we hired him.

He hired him because he took western Michigan to the cotton bowl by winning a lot of games
At no point did anyone say “he isn’t a good coach but that’s fine”
 

Some guy said:
This is one of the worst pieces of analysis I’ve seen as to why we hired him.

He hired him because he took western Michigan to the cotton bowl by winning a lot of games
At no point did anyone say “he isn’t a good coach but that’s fine”
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Thanks but your opinion means little to me. I loved hearing you double down on your Purdue take last week.
 

Some guy said:
This is one of the worst pieces of analysis I’ve seen as to why we hired him.

He hired him because he took western Michigan to the cotton bowl by winning a lot of games
At no point did anyone say “he isn’t a good coach but that’s fine”
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There's a big difference between "he's not a good coach" and "he's not a good game day coach".

Being a college football coach is like being a CEO. Recruiting, culture, selling the program to kids and donors all matter. PJ can be good at all that and still be a below average game day coach and he is. If he has good coordinators, which I believe he currently does, it's not a massive issue. But the recruiting at the very least is trending poorly and it's concerning.
 

howeda7 said:
There's a big difference between "he's not a good coach" and "he's not a good game day coach".

Being a college football coach is like being a CEO. Recruiting, culture, selling the program to kids and donors all matter. PJ can be good at all that and still be a below average game day coach and he is. If he has good coordinators, which I believe he currently does, it's not a massive issue. But the recruiting at the very least is trending poorly and it's concerning.
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Below average compared to who?
 

mnsportsgeek said:
Thanks but your opinion means little to me. I loved hearing you double down on your Purdue take last week.
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I said Purdue isn’t very good and they’d lose again.
They did.
I said I was wrong about the gophers and they aren’t very good either


Your opinion means a lot to me, I’m worried for your mental health
 

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