P.J. Fleck enters Year 10 with Gophers: ‘I have the best job in the world’

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Per Wald:

The Gophers and P.J. Fleck held a local media day Wednesday on campus, before a select group heads to Big Ten Media Days. Fleck is entering his 10th season with the Gophers. He’s 66-44 overall at Minnesota, including 39-40 in Big Ten play and 7-0 in bowl games, including winners of five straight. The Gophers are coming off an 8-5 season, including a 5-4 mark in the Big Ten.

"I have the best job in the world," Fleck said.


Gophers’ roster outlook​

The backstory:

Fleck has been able to largely retain the top talent on his roster despite intense competition across college football with NIL and the transfer portal. This year, the Gophers are the only team in the Big Ten to retain their head coach, both offensive and defensive coordinators and their quarterback.

The Gophers have 50 new players on the 2026 roster, including 31 high school players and 19 transfers. The offense is centered around Drake Lindsey, Greg Johnson and Ashton Beers on the offensive line, Darius Taylor at running back and Jalen Smith at wide receiver.

Anthony Smith leads the defensive line, along with Jaxon Howard, Maverick Baranowski at linebacker and John Nestor in the secondary, among other talent. Fleck says keeping players that fit with the culture, and aren’t so focused on getting paid, is the right mix.

"I love the vibe of this football team. What works here is if money is part of the equation and it’s not the only equation." Fleck said.

www.fox9.com

P.J. Fleck enters Year 10 with Gophers: ‘I have the best job in the world’

The Gophers football team held local media day on Wednesday as P.J. Fleck enters Year 10 at Minnesota.
www.fox9.com www.fox9.com

Go Gophers!!
 




College football head coach is a very difficult job (more off the field than on game day) but I agree he has one of the best jobs in the world based on jobs I would want to do. I'll take a few mil a year to coach Gopher Football
 




Kitzmann57 said:
Name any other Big Ten coach you'd rather have than PJ? I'd like Lanning, Bielema, Cignetti, Ferentz (if he were 20 yrs younger) and Whittengham.
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Not convinced lanning would be at Oregon right now if he took at job at a mid tier team power 4 job first

Every coach post Reagan except the one who was there for just one year has a top 5 AP Finish in their Oregon tenure
 




Kitzmann57 said:
Name any other Big Ten coach you'd rather have than PJ? I'd like Lanning, Bielema, Cignetti, Ferentz (if he were 20 yrs younger) and Whittengham.
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I dont think any of those coaches sans Cignetti and Whittingham come into Minnesota when Fleck did and do what he's done (even Cignetti pre-NIL may have floundered). All others were gifted excellent conditions at their respective schools when hired. Bielema with his current record at Illinois is a push at best.

Quite honestly, Whittingham is the only one I'd consider. His body of work at Utah over time was impressive with few lulls in success. Utah seemed to be very Minnesota adjacent in terms of resources and overall prestige, and he did an excellent job there over a long time considering their very pedestrian program history prior to Meyers' brief stop there.
 

fmlizard said:
I remember the 2023 times when it came out and I would ask it things like the top 10 Gopher Football players of all time and get Gary Russell, Brock Lesnar, and Randy Moss
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LLMs are still terrible for that, I assume sports discourse on the internet just breaks word math for sports.
 

mngg11 said:
I dont think any of those coaches sans Cignetti and Whittingham come into Minnesota when Fleck did and do what he's done (even Cignetti pre-NIL may have floundered). All others were gifted excellent conditions at their respective schools when hired. Bielema with his current record at Illinois is a push at best.

Quite honestly, Whittingham is the only one I'd consider. His body of work at Utah over time was impressive with few lulls in success. Utah seemed to be very Minnesota adjacent in terms of resources and overall prestige, and he did an excellent job there over a long time considering their very pedestrian program history prior to Meyers' brief stop there.
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So pretty much PJ best coach in B10?
 




gopherbadgerman said:
So pretty much PJ best coach in B10?
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Not even close, but im not going to entertain the theory that these other coaches are going to have the same or greater success here as Fleck when they've never had to coach at Minnesota or any other lower tier/resource poor programs.

In the current era, coaching is nowhere as relevant as the willingness of the school to commit resources at the level of football they're competing at. We are resource deficient, the schools who employ the compared coaches are flush. There's nothing to accurately predict another coach's success here unless they actually coach here or have coached at a comparative program.

Wittingham is the only one who's shown quantitatively at a resource/prestige adjacent program that he's a better coach than Fleck. Hard to prove anything else in this argument when you're bringing a switchblade to a gunfight and everyone else (aside from Bielema, again a push) has bazookas.
 

mngg11 said:
I dont think any of those coaches sans Cignetti and Whittingham come into Minnesota when Fleck did and do what he's done (even Cignetti pre-NIL may have floundered). All others were gifted excellent conditions at their respective schools when hired. Bielema with his current record at Illinois is a push at best.

Quite honestly, Whittingham is the only one I'd consider. His body of work at Utah over time was impressive with few lulls in success. Utah seemed to be very Minnesota adjacent in terms of resources and overall prestige, and he did an excellent job there over a long time considering their very pedestrian program history prior to Meyers' brief stop there.
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PJ has the best job in the country because there are nerds like this guy who thinks he is the second coming of Bud Grant. He has little to no pressure as long as he continues to be mediocre. I’m afraid his choice of coordinators one of these years is gonna bite him in the ass because I really think especially on offense our guy is playing checkers when the conference defensive coordinators are playing chess. A lot of discussion about OL and WR room and how talented those guys are a lot of times I think it’s hard to tell because I’m not sure if they’re being put in the best possible position to succeed? I think PJ has recruited talent pretty damn well what we do with that on Saturdays sometimes befuddles me.
 

Gopherchase said:
PJ has the best job in the country because there are nerds like this guy who thinks he is the second coming of Bud Grant. He has little to no pressure as long as he continues to be mediocre. I’m afraid his choice of coordinators one of these years is gonna bite him in the ass because I really think especially on offense our guy is playing checkers when the conference defensive coordinators are playing chess. A lot of discussion about OL and WR room and how talented those guys are a lot of times I think it’s hard to tell because I’m not sure if they’re being put in the best possible position to succeed? I think PJ has recruited talent pretty damn well what we do with that on Saturdays sometimes befuddles me.
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We fired Mason for the same reasons he wants to build a statue for PJ. No coach in the last 60 years has had more resources than PJ Fleck.

What has PJ done with those resources? Any improvement in results is more correlated to the weaker schedules than anything else.

So more resources, weaker schedules, similar results get you a statue at Minnesota. Guess that's why PJ knows he has the best job in college football.
 

caliGopher said:
We fired Mason for the same reasons he wants to build a statue for PJ. No coach in the last 60 years has had more resources than PJ Fleck.

What has PJ done with those resources? Any improvement in results is more correlated to the weaker schedules than anything else.

So more resources, weaker schedules, similar results get you a statue at Minnesota. Guess that's why PJ knows he has the best job in college football.
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Yeah Glen Mason playing 4 cupcakes every year was totally a more difficult schedule.

PJ has more wins against teams that finished in the top 25 than Mason and Kill combined. Kill had 0.
 

Check the winning percentages of our opponents in conference games only, if you want. It appears you will be surprised. That includes the fact that 6 of PJs games in the first 8 years of his tenure are inflated by the divisional structure.
 
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GopherWeatherGuy said:
Yeah Glen Mason playing 4 cupcakes every year was totally a more difficult schedule.

PJ has more wins against teams that finished in the top 25 than Mason and Kill combined. Kill had 0.
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This plus Grinnin' Glen had zero self-marketing skills as HC. This changed of course as a talking head for his stint at the B1G Network. Plus the guy that shows up with KFAN every week is very likeable. But as a coach he was a jerk more often than not.
 

caliGopher said:
We fired Mason for the same reasons he wants to build a statue for PJ. No coach in the last 60 years has had more resources than PJ Fleck.

What has PJ done with those resources? Any improvement in results is more correlated to the weaker schedules than anything else.

So more resources, weaker schedules, similar results get you a statue at Minnesota. Guess that's why PJ knows he has the best job in college football.
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I think Mason is under appreciated.

But

Mason big ten winning percentage 40%
Kill 40%
Claeys 42%

Wacker 20%
Brewster 22%

Fleck 49%


Alvarez 51%
Tiller 55%
Kirk F 59%
Beilema 59%
Dantonio 64%

I don’t think in terms of success fleck belongs in any of these groups
 

caliGopher said:
We fired Mason for the same reasons he wants to build a statue for PJ. No coach in the last 60 years has had more resources than PJ Fleck.

What has PJ done with those resources? Any improvement in results is more correlated to the weaker schedules than anything else.

So more resources, weaker schedules, similar results get you a statue at Minnesota. Guess that's why PJ knows he has the best job in college football.
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Lol we play an additional conference game than Mason did and the big ten is now the toughest league in the country, it was fourth, maybe third at beat under Mason. Fleck also plays a P4 in the non con. Mason's non con schedules were a joke, but hey he beat a one win Baylor team in 2000!
Resources everyone has more resources where are we in comparison to the teams that we are competing matters a hell of a lot more
 


The Deliberate Stranger said:
Lol we play an additional conference game than Mason did and the big ten is now the toughest league in the country, it was fourth, maybe third at beat under Mason. Fleck also plays a P4 in the non con. Mason's non con schedules were a joke, but hey he beat a one win Baylor team in 2000!
Resources everyone has more resources where are we in comparison to the teams that we are competing matters a hell of a lot more
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Mason also only played 8/10 conference opponents.
Mason beat one team finishing in the top 3 in the big ten during his tenure.
It was a Michigan team that was in a 4 way tie for third.
 

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