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

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mngg11 said:
Rutm, rutm, rutm, punt was the siren song of the Jerry Kill offense, not PJ's. Nice try though.

Since 2023, the run/pass ratio has been roughlly 60/40. Prior to that it was closer to 70/30. We've clearly been trending toward more passing volume.
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Because they cant run block.
 

Off-GridTNgopher said:
Mineesota- where avg to slightly above are the requirement.

For the most part we are competitive and who knows what happens if mo doesn't get injured against ohio st.

P.J as a person fits Minnesota. So I think he is the best coach in the B1G for this job...
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I completely agree. Fleck is a perfect fit for Minnesota. The best head coach that we have had in my 50 years as a Gopher fan. Minnesota does not have the money to go out and get a top coordinator. We just had one of the best D coordinators in the country but lost him due to money. That was not Fleck's fault. Fleck does a great job with what he has to work with at Minnesota. If the defensive and offensive lines end up working out this season, 2026 could be Fleck's best team. And if the right guys return in 2027, the team only gets better. Go Gophers!
 

Some guy said:
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
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Alvarez's an interesting coach. He beat up on all the bottom feeders during his time and ocassionally every few years would beat a big dog. IMO, he did a great job with the resources he had but overrated in my book.
 

4four4 said:
Alvarez's an interesting coach. He beat up on all the bottom feeders during his time and ocassionally every few years would beat a big dog. IMO, he did a great job with the resources he had but overrated in my book.
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Alvarez won three Rose bowls and went to a bunch of great bowl games. He would have a statue here if he had the same success. I think the best Bell weather on how a program is doing and whether our profile and results of improved are the bowl games and we’ve been to one good one in 10 years.
 

4four4 said:
Alvarez's an interesting coach. He beat up on all the bottom feeders during his time and ocassionally every few years would beat a big dog. IMO, he did a great job with the resources he had but overrated in my book.
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Alvarez took the Badgers to three Rose Bowls and won. B1G Co-Champs those three years. I am not a Badger fan at all but what he did as HC and AD was not overrated IMHO.
 



4four4 said:
Alvarez's an interesting coach. He beat up on all the bottom feeders during his time and ocassionally every few years would beat a big dog. IMO, he did a great job with the resources he had but overrated in my book.
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Agree a lot

He also benefitted from the setup of the conference.

1993 won the conference. Didn’t beat either of the other two teams in the top 3.
Missed one, tied another.
0-0-1 vs other team in top 3

1998 won the conference. Didn’t beat either of the other two teams in the top 3. Missed one, lost to the other.
0-1-0 vs other teams in top 3.

1999 actually beat a team in the top 3.
Was 1-1 vs top 3.

If you flip the Ohio state-Michigan result in 93 and 98
And flip the Michigan state-Michigan result in 99

Barry Alvarez would have zero big ten titles.

I wish in 99 the gophers had won in OT vs the badgers and benefited from that conference setup (or beat Michigan in 03).

Flip the results of 5 games from 1993-2003 and the gophers have two titles and the badgers have zero. Alas, that didn’t happen
 

PMWinSTP said:
Alvarez took the Badgers to three Rose Bowls and won. B1G Co-Champs those three years. I am not a Badger fan at all but what he did as HC and AD was not overrated IMHO.
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I do think he is overrated. But I also think he is one of the big ten greats. He is a worse coach than dantonio and Hayden fry though
 

Gopherchase said:
Alvarez won three Rose bowls and went to a bunch of great bowl games. He would have a statue here if he had the same success. I think the best Bell weather on how a program is doing and whether our profile and results of improved are the bowl games and we’ve been to one good one in 10 years.
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I don’t think you have to be saying Alvarez is worse than fleck to say Alvarez is overrated

I’m pretty comfortable saying Alvarez is better than fleck. Is a big ten hall of famer and college football hall of famer.
But he is probably one of the bottom coaches to achieve the hall of fame.

Zero national titles.
One outright conference title.
 




Some guy said:
I do think he is overrated. But I also think he is one of the big ten greats. He is a worse coach than dantonio and Hayden fry though
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Fry was never ranked higher than #10 in AP, lost all three Rose Bowls.
 





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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I'll repeat my usual comment as well when these topics come up that Mason's cupcakes weren't just more frequent, but also those cupcakes were so bad.

I feel like the "below P5" crowd back then was generally far more distant from the P5 level overall. Those teams would show up, play maybe 1 or two defensive looks ... and P5 teams could just physically push around the opposing team and win.

These days even cupcakes look like they are more consistent and capable. Cupcake teams changing up defensive looks and generally seem to have far better players across the board.
 
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PMWinSTP said:
Fry was never ranked higher than #10 in AP, lost all three Rose Bowls.
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If you value bow wins more than regular season wins you could say Alvarez better than fry.

Fry had 3 titles, 1 outright (matches Alvarez on both). His outright title he beat the team in second and third place.
One of his shared titles he was in a 4 way tie and was 3-0 against other teams in the tie.
His first title he won an Alvarez title…meaning he missed the team he was tied with and was 2-1 against the three teams tied for second.

Fry won 59% of his conference games
Alvarez won 51%

Fry won 58% of his overall games at Iowa
Alvarez won 61%

Fry coached in an era where you played 8/9 other teams plus a major conference non conference for the first part of his tenure.
Alvarez coached in an era where you played 8/10 and a bunch of cupcakes. It makes no sense but it was easier to turn a program around post Penn state addition (which is why that period is why Wisconsin, Purdue, Illinois, and northwestern all won titles in that era. From 1993-2002 8/11 programs won a conference title…in my opinion because of imbalanced schedules and co-titles. If you go to 2010 then 9/11 won them…it was much harder to have success in the 80s than the 90s in my opinion

Fry - 0 top 5 finishes, 2 top 10 finishes, 9 top 20 finishes
Alvarez - 3 top 5 finishes, 3 top 10 finishes, 5 top 20 finishes


Hayden fry developed Alvarez. It’s close. I give the edge to fry. It’s okay if you don’t because you value rose bowl wins more than me.

They were 5-5 against each other.
 
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gopherbadgerman said:
Because they cant run block.
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Actually, because we changed the offense.

We just didn't tell anybody until PJ apparently told the announcers prior to the Seahawks game that Brosmer started last season. First I'd heard that we'd gone to a pro-style offense (and by pro-style, the kind of pro-style that gets head coaches fired quickly in the NFL).

I guess we're on the 5-year plan to make the transition. Only two more years to go and THEN, we're coming.....
 

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