Will this firing really solve anything? Hell no! The University of Minnesota put their trust in Fleck when they hired him, therefore they put trust into who he hires to fill these critical roles. Fleck hired Smith, and still oversaw the Defense in some capacity in these abysmal games where we gave up huge yardage plays to below average offenses and saw no improvement week in and week out. In the end, this goes back to Fleck. I think the NFL is different in this aspect of coaching, but college is different when it comes to hiring and firing of coordinators. We already seen in a past coaching regime here at Minnesota, one that shall go unnamed, where we went through offensive coordinators every year, changing coordinators after the first season. And how did that turnout? Did it solve anything? No. This is all but a scapegoat, and Smith is the sacrificial lamb taking the hit for mistakes that go through the entire coaching staff. Fleck is only in his second year, and all his coaches are only in their second year as well. We bring Fleck in, and we are willing to give him time to build this team up and trust in the process. You let this thing play out. You do not dismantle the process and place the blame on one person for issues that cycle through the whole team and the entire coaching staff. If you want Smith gone, might as well fire the entire coaching staff and start over because when we can't fix issues week after week after week of giving up 40 to 50 points to below average teams, there is an issue beyond Smith. To say that Fleck had no involvement whatsoever in how this defense has been performing and being coached is completely asinine. After the Maryland game, and then the Iowa game, two games where we gave up over 40 points, I highly doubt Fleck was just staying out of Smith's way and letting him do all the defensive coaching. Fleck still had influence in the past month of games to how our defense has played, and we have seen our defense, and some parts of our offense, deescalate. We have seen nothing but excuses out of Fleck about how young this team is, and how inexperienced they are, and that is true to some extent. We are a very young team, but there has been no sign of improvement, and these players are continuing to make the same mistakes when young teams like Purdue are improving on a weekly basis. This firing is nothing but another excuse. I am not saying to give up on Fleck. We must give him time. He is only in his second year, but he has issues beyond the Defensive Coordinator that needs to be addressed and issues that go back to him as the head coach of the Gopher football team. This is a scapegoat, and I fear Fleck is not going to take responsibility to fix issues within his own coaching strategy to help the program succeed in the future.
Disagree with me all you want, but it is what it is. A Scapegoat. Plain and Simple.
