Fleck is fired up on KFAN

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I kind of miss the days when my attendance, vocal and emotional support, and loyalty to the team was enough. Now it doesn't matter how well the coach does, its my responsibility to pay players to stay? If we had a winning program would people be as eager to leave? I want it to be as simple as coaches do their job and players do their job. I know it's more complicated. Hard for kids like Bucky to pass up that much money. But criminies, I've been in the stands since 1984. I feel like I've been doing my job.
 

tmvander said:
Is there a list somewhere that ranks college teams NIL earnings from 1-150ish? I'd like to see where the gophers fall on that list. In terms of beating teams like Michigan, Ohio St, etc. PJ is right. In order to compete we need to boost those NIL numbers.

However, in order to compete with teams like Bowling Green, Northwestern, Illinois, Purdue, even Iowa, Maryland, and Wisconsin I'm sure we don't need much more. Where do we compare to South Dakota St, Fresno St, and Georgia Southern that all almost beat us in 2019? Miami of Ohio gave us a run in 2021...how does their NIL look?

While he isn't wrong he also should probably worry about beating the teams that look up at us, or at the very least, across at us in terms of NIL vs whining about the same ones that everyone else is.
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If we're going to knock him for almost losing to teams, does he get credit for almost beating Ohio State in 2021? There's enough to criticize as is, I don't think we need to stretch that far.
 

Breakin' The Plane said:
It's pretty gross when the head coach of a college football team has to go on the radio and urge people to make donations to a 3rd party so he can pay his players. They might as well go ahead and remove the "C" from NCAA. It's no longer applicable.
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I’m not sure where you have been, but this is now the reality of college football
 

Breakin' The Plane said:
After talking about Darius Taylor, Fleck basically implied he's not going to be here next year. He then said they had a guy who used to play here, that's doing well someplace else because they couldn't afford to pay him (Irving, of course).
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This is probably the tipping point for fans of programs like MN. I'm a HUGE college football fan, but i don't think i can hang in with a sport that will have such a clear line between the haves & have-nots. It's worse than MLB, because at least the Twins can hold on to their young prospects until they become free agents.

How are you going to feel when Taylor is suiting up for Michigan next year? Are you going to ride with the Gophers, buy tickets to games you have no hope of winning and just take it year after year in a system that you can't compete in? We'll sign 2 & 3-star players, and when we uncover a few diamonds in the rough, we'll watch them move on to greener pastures. No thanks.

I didn't want to think of NIL as the death of college football, and for many fans (of teams like OSU, Michigan, Georgia, TX, Alabama...etc) it won't be. But for programs like Minnesota...we're going to be reduced to a feeder program.
 


DT1 must be getting some major offers already. I have to think he turned down money to come here in the first place. Fleck to Michigan State makes more sense after hearing that comment.
 


tpbeight said:
This is probably the tipping point for fans of programs like MN. I'm a HUGE college football fan, but i don't think i can hang in with a sport that will have such a clear line between the haves & have-nots. It's worse than MLB, because at least the Twins can hold on to their young prospects until they become free agents.

How are you going to feel when Taylor is suiting up for Michigan next year? Are you going to ride with the Gophers, buy tickets to games you have no hope of winning and just take it year after year in a system that you can't compete in? We'll sign 2 & 3-star players, and when we uncover a few diamonds in the rough, we'll watch them move on to greener pastures. No thanks.

I didn't want to think of NIL as the death of college football, and for many fans (of teams like OSU, Michigan, Georgia, TX, Alabama...etc) it won't be. But for programs like Minnesota...we're going to be reduced to a feeder program.
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Why didn't Taylor go to Michigan this year then? Who have we lost to NIL besides Bucky? Didn't Cincinnati make the CFP 2 seasons ago? Didn't TCU make it last season? Clemson is going to miss it for the 3rd straight season. Alabama continues to look less and less dominant. When has Texas ever made the CFP?

Good lord this board has become a complete shit show this week.
 

Zeppelin Gopher said:
Kinda interesting (or pathetic) for Fleck to bring up NIL this week of all weeks.

Galling after that abomination of a 4th quarter in Evanston, which has absolutely zero to do with NIL.
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Can NIL buy us better coaching? 🤔
 



disco said:
You have a point with regards to the transfer portal. I can't remember how many guys I saw play this weekend who were on their third school. It was quite a few.
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Don't recall solid examples, but I have heard rumors of player tampering.
 

@Tucker32 yep you nailed it.

Win the West, beat Iowa and Wisc, decent bowl game, is a special season. Great, people will care.

A single blob of 18 teams, the top 8-10 of which are head & shoulders above us in talent level and funding, thus we rarely have a chance to finish above 8th best .... people will tune out.
 





@GopherWeatherGuy why would Taylor go sit on the bench at Michigan when Fleck said he would be playing as a true freshman if he came here?? (Behind closed doors, wild guess)

Of course he comes here, gets his feet wet. Probably didn't think he'd already be doing this good first year. Surprise. The offers come when you do well. They don't care what year you are in school.


If you're going to hang your hat on making the (first round of the) playoff .... riddle me this. 6 conf champions and 6 at-large .... how often is the 6th - 8th team in the Big Ten standings going to be selected at-large??

Come on dude.
 

MplsGopher said:
@Tucker32 yep you nailed it.

Win the West, beat Iowa and Wisc, decent bowl game, is a special season. Great, people will care.

A single blob of 18 teams, the top 8-10 of which are head & shoulders above us in talent level and funding, thus we rarely have a chance to finish above 8th best .... people will tune out.
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You end up with essentially what MLB was pre-1968.
 


GopherWeatherGuy said:
Why didn't Taylor go to Michigan this year then? Who have we lost to NIL besides Bucky?
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Not sure on the football side, but we definitely lost Evans to Louisville on the hoops side. They basically admitted that it was about money.
 

theTurning said:
We missed our window. Having an easy path in the B1GWEST was our chance to jump up a rung and we didn’t capitalize.
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100% this.
Wasted it with Glen and PJ trying to run the clock and hang on instead of win.

Good news, my other team, Tulane beat USC in January, so it can be done. Heck, Bowling Green is sitting there saying it can be done.

Prob is, PJ can’t do it.
 

disco said:
Minnesota $199 million in athletic donations.

Iowa $477
Illinois $377
Indiana $351

We aren't even close to these programs. And at least Northwestern has the Ryan family.
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That's over a 17 year period, where we saw the Gophers get a new football stadium and a new athletes village/practice facility.

How do our football results compare to Indiana/Illinois? How about our stadiums? Are we that far behind Iowa as a football program?
 

disco said:
Not sure on the football side, but we definitely lost Evans to Louisville on the hoops side. They basically admitted that it was about money.
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The answer is no one else in football, even though several could have left and didn't.

Evans has proven nothing on the court yet. He wasn't even dominant in high school.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
The answer is no one else in football, even though several could have left and didn't.

Evans has proven nothing on the court yet. He wasn't even dominant in high school.
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Correct, and I agree on Evans. I'm not sure why everyone was so gung ho on the guy.
 

Tucker32 said:
This is such a tired, old argument. Sid is dead, let it go. The coach has to first build something worth investing in, and there are really only a handful of programs with NIL money now anyway. We are comparable to most, and never will keep up with Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, USC, Alabama, Tennessee... you can count on two hands the programs that have a lot of NIL.

Let's be honest, unless this gets figured out it is the end of college football. People are not going to be interested in what will essentially become a pro league of 10 elite programs and another 10-15 that have a chance every now and then. People don't watch AAA baseball, the CBA, or second tier of anything. The NCAA and universities have to figure this out because right now, even though the Purdue, Minnesota, and Kentucky type programs really don't have a chance of winning an NCAA championship, they have rivalries and a chance to win the West in conference play. They then cheer for their conference teams moving forward. As the conferences get so big you are never competing for anything and dilute the meaning of a conference altogether, people will lose interest. Many already have...
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Evidently, you have never been in the presence of Faculty saying that Athletics has no place at a University.

Despite all the outlandish crap Sid peddled, there was enough actual substance coming from him that you had to look before you flushed, er, dismissed it.

I don't think NIL will be as narrowly donated and distributed as you think. The outrage over cutting Men's Gymnastics alone shows that if that program came back it would be well funded by alumni of that program alone.
 


BleedGopher said:
Without hearing the segment (which I hope will be made available to listen to) this was my reaction as well. Now, if he was baited into the question that's one thing, but this isn't the week to bring up NIL.

That being said, I do agree that NIL poses a very big threat to us and I don't think it's getting enough local attention. I have a buddy that is a moderate to high level NIL donor for TN Vols and he laughs that we are trying to raise $250K at a time. Granted, TN is in the belly of the beast at this level.

But Coyle doesn't have a vision for this at all, and some will point to the Fortune 500 companies we have here, but that is not where NIL dollars come from.
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This. There's plenty of talk on this forum of the big money and big corporations in this state implying that they have some kind of obligation or are some kind of untapped resources. But with very few exceptions, the "big corporations" have no interest in NIL. The money is going to come from small to midmarket businesses, owned by U of M sycophants, if such a thing exists. As a business owner myself, I see almost no value, if any value at all, to my business by paying an athlete at the local university for whatever qualifies as NIL. As a shareholder in some of the F500s or frankly any publicly traded company, I'd be pissed to learn that corporate resources were supporting NIL activity and I would guess I'm a much bigger sports fan that your typical BOD of these companies. NIL is going to have to come from fanatic car dealers, bar owners, etc. It's hard to see that happening in a lukewarm fan base of a mediocre football team.

I hate to sound like a broken record but what college football is missing is the parity of the NFL. NIL is only going to exacerbate that lack of parity. As much as I hate to see the loss of regionalism and regional rivalries, college football will need to nationalize, with the top tier consisting of 30 or 40 schools, who pay players a percentage of revenue with a salary cap. This would prevent an amalgamation of talent at a few schools. From there, the league is regionalized so that the playoffs have regional representation. The players will still have their NIL, and that might convince some players to play for the helmet schools for less, but increased parity and interest would eventually lead to a few fanatics ponying up at places like Minnesota.

And I think Minnesota is included in this league based on market size. But I think there are certainly a number of schools left out of this top tier. Iowa doesn't get two teams. Neither does Kansas or even Arizona or the Bay area.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of this but where we are now in college football and where we'll be next year does not excite me. In this current environment, the U couldn't win the Big 10 West with Nebraska, Iowa and Wisconsin all much worse programs than they've been in the last 20 years. How does the U ever become relevant in the new Big 18? It's better for CFB fans to follow FCS and lower divisions of football where there still exists some semblance of those things that make college football special.
 


tpbeight said:
This is probably the tipping point for fans of programs like MN. I'm a HUGE college football fan, but i don't think i can hang in with a sport that will have such a clear line between the haves & have-nots. It's worse than MLB, because at least the Twins can hold on to their young prospects until they become free agents.

How are you going to feel when Taylor is suiting up for Michigan next year? Are you going to ride with the Gophers, buy tickets to games you have no hope of winning and just take it year after year in a system that you can't compete in? We'll sign 2 & 3-star players, and when we uncover a few diamonds in the rough, we'll watch them move on to greener pastures. No thanks.

I didn't want to think of NIL as the death of college football, and for many fans (of teams like OSU, Michigan, Georgia, TX, Alabama...etc) it won't be. But for programs like Minnesota...we're going to be reduced to a feeder program.
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It's actually a tipping point in all sports. The professional sports love parity because it keeps all of their fans engaged as much as possible.

College football is treading into some strange territory where they are intentionally dissolving some of the things that make it great (conferences based on regional rivalries, etc.) then they are mixing in things like the transfer portal where we don't get to watch guys like Bucky go from being a FR to JR/SR in our program and now the NIL stuff is just gasoline on that flame.

All of these changes were probably inevitable but I in a sport that is so steeped in tradition, I'm not sure dramatic change is in its best interests. It'll continue to do well because football is king, but I think the next 8-10 years could be the beginning of the pendulum swinging here. I hope I'm wrong.
 

swede2 said:
Laying the groundwork for an exit after this season - if offered at least a lateral position. Claim the support isn't here to be successful in the modern CFB era.
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Honestly, we are lucky he hasn't left yet. There is very little support for this program across the state IMO. MUCH more since he has been here than before he was.

He has a tough row to hoe here. Minnesota, if you ask fans across the country, is looked at as a mid to poor football program.
 


Ewert86PC said:
Evidently, you have never been in the presence of Faculty saying that Athletics has no place at a University.

Despite all the outlandish crap Sid peddled, there was enough actual substance coming from him that you had to look before you flushed, er, dismissed it.

I don't think NIL will be as narrowly donated and distributed as you think. The outrage over cutting Men's Gymnastics alone shows that if that program came back it would be well funded by alumni of that program alone.
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There was outrage over cutting gymnastics? I must have missed that.
 

MirandaB said:
I kind of miss the days when my attendance, vocal and emotional support, and loyalty to the team was enough. Now it doesn't matter how well the coach does, its my responsibility to pay players to stay? If we had a winning program would people be as eager to leave? I want it to be as simple as coaches do their job and players do their job. I know it's more complicated. Hard for kids like Bucky to pass up that much money. But criminies, I've been in the stands since 1984. I feel like I've been doing my job.
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You have been. The athletic department and administration at the U are the ones that haven't.
 

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