Fleck: "I think we can be a really good football team next year."

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Some truly laughable takes in this thread. Fortunately most are by the same 2-3 posters.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
As far as next year, please tell me:
Who comes back?
Who leaves?
and do any of the recruits have an immediate impact?

Tell me that, and then I can form an opinion on what this team might look like next year.

(and please don't give me the routine about how all the young players will be better. every bleepin' team in the country says the same thing.)
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Key returning players who didn't play this year
Braelin Oliver
Curtis Dunlap Jr
Daniel Faalele

I also don't think we will lose any significant starter for next year.

Also all the studs who were in the 2020 class like Ky Thomas, Tank Brown, Burns, Ersery, and others have had an extra year to develop.

If MN can have actual workouts, Spring Ball, Summer training, Fall Camp, and don't have to deal with covid absences week after week in 2021, I think they could be poised to be a lot better than this year.
 



MNVCGUY said:
It is far less about being happy with the results from this season and far more about not freaking out about what was a messed up year all the way around. In the Big Ten there are 4 teams that are probably ok with how things went this year (Ohio State, Indiana, Iowa, and Northwestern) for everyone else it was a very forgettable year.

As for our season, we dealt with massive covid issues causing us to have many games with key players missing. We were certainly not alone in that but I would be willing to bet we were one of the hardest hit overall.

We had a young defense that clearly could have used a standard off season and non-conf games to get ready as evidenced by how terrible they looked early in the year and how much they improved as the season went on.

2020 was a disappointing season, but it really isn't fair to judge any staff anywhere based on what happened this year because this was such a unique situation and one that nobody was really prepared for. Some teams fared better than others but everyone felt the impact of the pandemic to some extent.
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Coaches are getting fired this season just like they do every year. It’s wasn’t a mulligan season for them. We had the same set of circumstances as every team, so spare us the woe is me mentality. And let’s not forget how atrocious our defense was to start the season. That simply wasn’t an acceptable product to put on the field.
 

I expected this D to be less than the 19 crew but not that bad. No question that we missed the departed, their leadership and experience esp Winfield, Martin, CC, Williamson & Renner. Many here are super excited about all the “Paper Lion” recruits but thus far the court is still out if they will be better than Kills low ranking classes. Overall, this was a very disappointing season. Fleck has to step up in all phases to give us what we are paying for.
 

I can understand the human fear of uncertainty but to make decisions about coaches and predictions about what next year will bring based on this cluster of a season that never should have played is close to ridiculous.
 

Some guy said:
Maybe
2 times since 2000
5 since 1990

2 of 4 in fleck era

Let’s fire him
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Wisconsin offense was 89 in the country down top 2 RB’s and WR’s a starting OL with their #2 Qb playing as bad as could be and then having to play most of the 4th and OT with a third stringer and you want to praise the D for holding them to 20?
sorry that doesn’t cut.
I’m not at all saying fire PJ. This season was not good though. All three phases of the game were not even close to as good as 19. Mo was the one exception.
The OL did play well as the year went on and we have some DL who improved through the year.
 
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John Galt said:
Coaches are getting fired this season just like they do every year. It’s wasn’t a mulligan season for them. We had the same set of circumstances as every team, so spare us the woe is me mentality. And let’s not forget how atrocious our defense was to start the season. That simply wasn’t an acceptable product to put on the field.
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WOW!!!!!

So... we're at a point where losing by 3 points, in overtime, at Wisconsin is unacceptable?

If that's the case, we have dramatically upped our expectation game recently, as fans.

When did the bar get raised to the point where we can't accept losing by 3 in Madison? What exactly are our shiny, new, higher expectations these days, anyway? Have we suddenly taken things to a level where eleven wins is the 'new normal' here at Minnesota? Sub-.500 seasons will simply not be tolerated?

Holy whiplash, Batman!
 

RememberMurray said:
WOW!!!!!

So... we're at a point where losing by 3 points, in overtime, at Wisconsin is unacceptable?

If that's the case, we have dramatically upped our expectation game recently, as fans.

When did the bar get raised to the point where we can't accept losing by 3 in Madison? What exactly are our shiny, new, higher expectations these days, anyway? Have we suddenly taken things to a level where eleven wins is the 'new normal' here at Minnesota? Sub-.500 seasons will simply not be tolerated?

Holy whiplash, Batman!
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Losing anywhere is unacceptable and sub .500 seasons should not be tolerated. The Gophers should have won that game yesterday.

That doesn't mean Fleck should be fired. I am excited for next season.
 

dlhedlem said:
Does it matter how much I post? Do people who post a lot have better things to say? I think we know what we have in Fleck...a blend of Brewster and Mason. Seems like a 60-40 blend.
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Is that good or bad?
 

caliGopher said:
So after 4 years of superior recruiting and having the hottest young coach in college football, the best we should expect is to be able to compare him to two head coaches ago?

we're not going to have a new coach anytime soon, and i haven't heard anyone say Fleck should be fired. But we hired Fleck because we wanted more.

4 years in and we have little talent on defense. A team that was woefully unprepared for the season - and let's not forget, everyone had the same handicap this year - a losing conference record, and a team talent ranking in the big10 that is a mild improvement over the year before he took over.

Those are the facts. Yes, An improvement in results on the field and in the standings is a part of the expectations for anyone having a job as a head football coach. Not sure why anyone would look at this season and be happy with the results.
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Didn’t we already get more last year?
 



It is sad that was likely one of our best chances to beat WI and we ran out the clock at the end of both halves.
 

amk8930 said:
Didn’t he say at the end of last year something like we weren’t going to be a really bad team anymore? A sub .500 record that probably had us avoid another loss to Northwestern to go basically 3-5 makes it hard for me to believe what he’s saying.
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We probably wouldn't have been under .500 in a normal season (non-confidence games, not losing players to covid, opting out, etc.)
 

John Galt said:
Coaches are getting fired this season just like they do every year. It’s wasn’t a mulligan season for them. We had the same set of circumstances as every team, so spare us the woe is me mentality. And let’s not forget how atrocious our defense was to start the season. That simply wasn’t an acceptable product to put on the field.
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Oh come on.....there is no way you believe schools are firing coaches at a rate even close to the typical season. Yes there have been a handful of coaching changes so far but the coaching carousel is far less active this year to this point and I don't expect that to change.

And I agree, the defense was horrible to start the season. We had to replace a major portion of the starting lineup and had to do it with a super limited off season. The situation was made even worse with Oliver getting hurt and Teague opting out. The defense made big strides as the season wore on. In a typical year some of those strides would have been made during the off season and non conference games but we didn't have the benefit of those this year so it was ugly at the beginning. Wasn't a finished product by the end but only the most cynical would say there was no improvement on that side of the ball over the course of the season. Which bodes well for next year.

Coming off of the great 2019, 2020 was a letdown and not what any of us were hoping for. But it was also an extremely messed up year and I stand by my statements that it is foolish to evaluate any staff anywhere in the country based on the 2020 season.
 

They CAN be really good, but I've tempered my expectations big time. Assuming everyone comes back: OL should be the best in a LONG time (if not ever). Morgan is way above average among FBS QB's. Mo is one of the top 5 backs in the country. Durr and St. Juste are above average CB's. That said, there's still so many questions.
  1. No gamebreaker at WR. CAB is above average, but it was plain to see that after he went out yesterday the passing game pretty much stopped and vertical passing was non-existent.
  2. Lack of pass rush. Barely made the QB uncomfortable yesterday, let alone touched him. There's been some talent recruited at DE, but it'll be totally unproven outside of Mafe.
  3. Safeties and LB's who consistently run fit and tackle. The defense improved immensely from the start of the season, but much of that was due to the fact it was historically bad for several weeks. Yesterday still demonstrated the deficiencies at S and LB. They played better, but they still don't come downhill and aggressively (but correctly) run fit and tackle in open space. Howden and Nubin were embarrassing, Gordon was almost non-existent, and MSM played better but was mainly responsible for at least 2 explosive runs.
  4. Special teams are not special...at all. Crawford was better the past two weeks punting and the KO coverage was solid, but the rest of the ST are an unmitigated disaster. Who's the kicker? Even if Lantz was healthy all year, would you have felt good about the FG attempt in OT yesterday? Who returns kicks? Wiley was horrible, Howard is not a gamebreaker.
 

GO4INLALALAND said:
The players maybe better, but if we have the same oc who runs on 85% of first downs, it will be another challenging year.

Fleck can beat crap teams, but he has difficulty beating mid tier, eg, Iowa, WI and upper tier. I understand not beating upper tier, but our struggles with mid tier teams is frustrating.
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Ours is a mid-tier, if not slightly below mid-tier program. It's sad, but it's reality right now. For much of my lifetime they were a joke -- far below mid-tier program. I'd like to see them become upper-tier, and I think Fleck can get them there. I think he'll do so in the next 2 to 3 years, but building what Iowa and Wisconsin have (let alone somebody like OSU) will take at least a decade if not longer. The arc of improvement is long and slow...and sadly, it contains blips along the way.
 

Replacement Gopher said:
It is sad that was likely one of our best chances to beat WI and we ran out the clock at the end of both halves.
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There are plenty of reasons to be disappointed but maybe find a valid one. At the end of the first half we got the ball back with minimal time on the clock. We threw a pass that went incomplete and we got called for holding backing us up even more. Letting the last 20 seconds or so run out there was the right call given time and where we were on the field.

At the end of regulation, they were going for the score until the sack put us back in a tough yardage situation inside our own 30. It was also the right call at that point to take it to OT. In both cases if we had a reliable kicker you might be even more aggressive but the reality was that to get into field goal range we would have needed a ton of yards in both cases with very little time to work with against a really good defense.

It sucks to lose to Wisconsin....especially when the opportunities were there. But that is how the game goes. Game was there for the taking but some key things just didn't go our way:
1. Score a TD and have it nullified by a holding call and end up settling for a field goal on that drive
2. Have a pass Intercepted in the end zone
3. Have one major defensive breakdown leading to a long TD run right up the gut
4. Have a perfect play called in OT only to just miss on the execution of it. Leading to missed FG.
 

Plato said:
I can understand the human fear of uncertainty but to make decisions about coaches and predictions about what next year will bring based on this cluster of a season that never should have played is close to ridiculous.
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Yet ADs are doing just that, evaluating the season and making changes if needed.
 

46Gophers said:
I sure hope so because this year they pretty much sucked!
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Quite honestly, they were outreached in the Maryland and Wisconsin game. Could have been a 5-2 year very easily.......I know, if ifs and buts.....
 

Pretty much considering Game 1 next season versus tOSU a loss out of the gate.

I'm hoping we're competitive and heck would love to win, but the mantra of "on any given Saturday" would really have to be the gameday speech before that game.

Assuming we have the rest of the season as slated, 11-1 is the best we'll do (not saying that is WHAT we'll do). If the tOSU game were Game 5 or 6 might have a different attitude.

Regardless, any year we play the Buckeyes is a tough nut that week. Hoping Coach is correct though on all fronts.
 

PMWinSTP said:
Yet ADs are doing just that, evaluating the season and making changes if needed.
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True but at a much lower rate than usual and I doubt many of those decisions are being made just on the results of the 2020 season. Coaches getting fired this year were most likely on really thin ice heading into the season already.
 

Justin Gaard does a Gopher Football show Sunday morning on KFAN. Ryan Burns is on every week.

Listen to the podcast of today's show (12-20). Burns goes on an epic rant about special teams. "The Gophers have not made a 40-yd FG in X games.....The Gophers have not had a significant punt return in X games....and so on." Also ripped the decision to have CAB on the KO Return - given MN's depth or lack thereof at WR.

And he made a really good point - Fleck is a Jim Tressel disciple. Fleck's game strategy is based on controlling time of possession and field position. In order to do that, you need good special teams - PK, Punt, PR, KOR, Punt Ret coverage and KO Ret coverage.

If Fleck is going to succeed playing this style, the special teams have to be better. Period.

But listen to the podcast. Burns gets so worked up it was funny. (in a sad kind of way).
 

I'm thinking about my own expectations for the Gopher football program. I was trying to find a model of what I'd like us to be. As a starting point, I'm going to consider Iowa.

I was going to compare Ferentz to Fleck, but then I thought maybe a better comparison would be Hayden Fry to Fleck, since Ferentz was an assistant under Fry, and was simply re-building on the foundation Fry had already established at Iowa. Fry, on the other hand, had to go in and build a new 'culture', which seems more similar to Fleck's task at Minnesota.

Hayden Fry is seen as an icon at Iowa. He's their Barry Alvarez.

Here's Hayden Fry's record at Iowa, season-by-season:

1979: 5-6, 4-4
1980: 4-7, 4-4
1981: 8-4, 6-2 — Rose Bowl (L)
1982: 8-4, 6-2 — Peach Bowl (W)
1983: 9-3, 7-2 — Gator Bowl (L)
1984: 8-4-1, 5-3-1 — Freedom Bowl (W)
1985: 10-2, 7-1 — Rose Bowl (L)
1986: 9-3, 5-3 — Holiday Bowl (W)
1987: 10-3, 6-2 — Holiday Bowl (W)
1988: 6-4-3, 4-1-3 — Peach Bowl (L)
1989: 5-6, 3-5
1990: 8-4, 6-2 — Rose Bowl (L)
1991: 10-1-1, 7-1 — Holiday Bowl (T)
1992: 5-7, 4-4
1993: 6-6, 3-5 — Alamo Bowl (L)
1994: 5-5-1, 3-4-1
1995: 8-4, 4-4 — Sun Bowl (W)
1996: 9-3, 6-2 — Alamo Bowl (W)
1997: 7-5, 4-4 — Sun Bowl (L)
1998: 3-8, 2-6

So... even for a legendary coach, you're going to see ups and downs.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
And he made a really good point - Fleck is a Jim Tressel disciple. Fleck's game strategy is based on controlling time of possession and field position. In order to do that, you need good special teams - PK, Punt, PR, KOR, Punt Ret coverage and KO Ret coverage.

If Fleck is going to succeed playing this style, the special teams have to be better. Period.
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Really, really good points.
 


It was an exhibition season. It was an exhibition season. It was an exhibition season. Winning the West would have been fun but deserving of an asterisk. So playing imperfectly also deserves an asterisk. Enjoy the items that were enjoyable (Mo, last Bateman games, 18 tackle Sori-Marin game), take notes on the bad stuff.
 

Perhaps our unreliable, inexperienced placekicking game had something to do with the choice?

We'd been spoiled the previous 10-15 years with pretty good kickers. Please get us a placekicker that can be fairly reliable from 45+ when we need it.
 

NotAFanOfBecky said:
Nobody knows. Look at Northwestern last year vs this year. tOSU had all they could handle today. Kudos to a great coaching staff. Hopefully ours squad can be the same. Time will tell.
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Northwestern's big problem last year was that they didn't have a competent QB. We all remember how terrible that was during Fleck's first year. NW fixed that immediately by getting Payton Ramsey to transfer. We have multiple issues right now, mostly on defense, but we have to do some rebuilding on offense as well. Of course, finding a competent kicker is also a huge priority.
 

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