Fox Sports on Fleck to Minn: "Minnesota just pulled off the heist of the century."

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SamSquatch said:
7-9 wins could be great. It's about context. Who did you beat and how? Who did you lose to and how? Record alone cannot be used to evaluate these seasons.

Love the hire. Go Gophs!
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Well, we play a Big 10 schedule. I think a 7 win season can depend on who we beat, but I am not so sure a 9 win season can be a bad season. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. 9 wins is a high standard. It wasn't enough for Claeys because we lost to the 4 best teams we played, I get it. But I'll be interested to see how the same crowd reacts to similar seasons.
 

Some thoughts and hopes:

-Our annual game against Wisconsin should be the de facto B1G West Championship game.
-Beat Iowa into submission and make them accept lower tier status in the West.
-Dominate Northwestern and Illinois and use those victories to tap into the Chicagoland recruiting ground.
 

SamSquatch said:
7-9 wins could be great. It's about context. Who did you beat and how? Who did you lose to and how? Record alone cannot be used to evaluate these seasons.

Love the hire. Go Gophs!
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7-9 wins sounds about right.

The schedule gets a little tougher with Rutgers and Penn State off and Michigan and Michigan State on. Oregon State will be a road game. 8-4 regular season would decent for a first-year coach here. Impossible to speculate on a bowl game at this point.
 

Can people who remember tell us whether this is as big a "splash" as when Lou Holtz was hired?
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
WR and OL weren't great, but we are returning quite a bit of depth depth there. We should be good.

So what do you expect in the next two years? I'd be happy with 7-9 wins in the next two seasons, but that was a big "meh" for a lot of people. I'm not ripping on that opinion, I just am curious what that crowd would deem successful in years 1-3.
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Honestly can't understand why all of the sudden many are settling for 7-8 wins the next two years. Hope I'm not already beating a dead horse, but we just went out and got someone who is seen as a better coach and recruiter.

I don't get it.
 


Adding the Spartans and dropping Penn State is a plus.
 

It is not as big as Holtz. Football was in a very bad place back then. Bad record, bad facilities, and yet Harvey McKay and his brotherhood snagged a top tier coach out of nowhere.
 

bigticket1 said:
Adding the Spartans and dropping Penn State is a plus.
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Well maybe, but it's not like MSU is very far removed from big success. Adding Michigan and dropping Rutgers is definitely a big minus.
 

The title of this thread reminds me of headlines after Herschel Walker's first game as a Viking...how'd that work out? It's clear most in the media and many on Gopherhole are sure we just hired Bear Bryant 2.0, but I think maybe we should let the coach from the directional institution prove he can coach in the Bigs first.
 



SamSquatch said:
7-9 wins could be great. It's about context. Who did you beat and how? Who did you lose to and how? Record alone cannot be used to evaluate these seasons.

Love the hire. Go Gophs!
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Really? This is not a rebuild.

Do you consider PJ a big time coach? An elite coach as GWG does?
 

DoubleAlum said:
Can people who remember tell us whether this is as big a "splash" as when Lou Holtz was hired?
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It was a completely different world with no Internet, social media, etc., but based on what I recall I think it was a bigger deal then, particularly because the program was at absolute rock bottom (they had lost 84-13 to Nebraska three months earlier), and people were amazed that Paul Giel could pull it off. Holtz had a national reputation and had been in New Year's Day bowls with Arkansas; he was viewed as an established star, not the hot prospect that Fleck is. To give you an idea of how excited people were back then, I believe they actually sold (albeit at a low price) over 40,000 tickets to the spring game in 1985.
 

xyz1 said:
It was a completely different world with no Internet, social media, etc., but based on what I recall I think it was a bigger deal then, particularly because the program was at absolute rock bottom (they had lost 84-13 to Nebraska three months earlier), and people were amazed that Paul Giel could pull it off. Holtz had a national reputation and had been in New Year's Day bowls with Arkansas; he was viewed as an established star, not the hot prospect that Fleck is. To give you an idea of how excited people were back then, I believe they actually sold (albeit at a low price) over 40,000 tickets to the spring game in 1985.
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Thanks. 40,000, that's incredible for Minnesota.
 

saintpaulguy said:
It is not as big as Holtz. Football was in a very bad place back then. Bad record, bad facilities, and yet Harvey McKay and his brotherhood snagged a top tier coach out of nowhere.
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Incredibly, the Metrodome helped sell Holtz on the U.
 



PMWinSTP said:
Honestly can't understand why all of the sudden many are settling for 7-8 wins the next two years. Hope I'm not already beating a dead horse, but we just went out and got someone who is seen as a better coach and recruiter.

I don't get it.
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Anytime you're starting over with a new coach there's a good chance you're going to take a step back in year 1. Especially when you're starting over at QB and losing a number of good starters. On top of that you could be losing most of the future secondary and 2 possible future QBs to the suspensions. That's a lot to lose. There's a lot of holes to fill and Fleck can't fill them all in 3 weeks.

We're not in as bad of a spot as when Brewster was fired, but we're not Wisconsin either. Be more realistic.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
Anytime you're starting over with a new coach there's a good chance you're going to take a step back in year 1. Especially when you're starting over at QB and losing a number of good starters. On top of that you could be losing most of the future secondary and 2 possible future QBs to the suspensions. That's a lot to lose. There's a lot of holes to fill and Fleck can't fill them all in 3 weeks.

We're not in as bad of a spot as when Brewster was fired, but we're not Wisconsin either. Be more realistic.
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I am. How many games do you think Fleck would have won this year as HC of Gophs, all things being equal?
 

PMWinSTP said:
I am. How many games do you think Fleck would have won this year as HC of Gophs, all things being equal?
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Pretty sure if the "Peej" had been here this year we would have been playing this coming Monday night...how could you question it?
 

GoForGold said:
Well maybe, but it's not like MSU is very far removed from big success. Adding Michigan and dropping Rutgers is definitely a big minus.
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True but Michigan will not be as strong next year losing their ENTIRE starting defense. I'd say the total trade off is a push.
 

Oregon Gopher said:
True but Michigan will not be as strong next year losing their ENTIRE starting defense. I'd say the total trade off is a push.
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OK, that will help. What about Oregon State on the road since you must live out there.How are they looking?
 

GoForGold said:
OK, that will help. What about Oregon State on the road since you must live out there.How are they looking?
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It won't be an easy win by any means. Anderson is a very solid coach and the kids play hard for him. Like the Gophers- much will depend on the QB spot for the offense. Our (UM) defense should still be superior though.
 


Oregon Gopher said:
It won't be an easy win by any means. Anderson is a very solid coach and the kids play hard for him. Like the Gophers- much will depend on the QB spot for the offense. Our (UM) defense should still be superior though.
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It will be good to have a tough match-up going into the conference season. Hopefully, you can get to that game and cheer for the Gophers.
 

xyz1 said:
It was a completely different world with no Internet, social media, etc., but based on what I recall I think it was a bigger deal then, particularly because the program was at absolute rock bottom (they had lost 84-13 to Nebraska three months earlier), and people were amazed that Paul Giel could pull it off. Holtz had a national reputation and had been in New Year's Day bowls with Arkansas; he was viewed as an established star, not the hot prospect that Fleck is. To give you an idea of how excited people were back then, I believe they actually sold (albeit at a low price) over 40,000 tickets to the spring game in 1985.
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No big ten network showing the press conference live. Espn was a fledgeling. I think it is very difficult to compare the two situations.
 

PMWinSTP said:
I am. How many games do you think Fleck would have won this year as HC of Gophs, all things being equal?
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It probably would have been similar. Just like if you would have given Western Michigan the Gophers schedule, I think their results would have been similar. Maybe they pull off another win, who knows? Claeys, Sawvel etc can coach defense and I've always said that. Plus most of this year's team was recruited with Kill as the head coach.

Fleck's offense and defense won't be radically different than what Minnesota has been running. The difference is Kill/Claeys kept hitting their regular season win ceiling of 8 wins, mainly because they couldn't recruit better offensive/skill position talent. Many said this year, imagine if the Gophers just had a better QB and WRs, they would have won the west. Fleck will give them a much better chance at recruiting the higher end talent they need to win the west then Claeys would have going forward.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
It probably would have been similar. Just like if you would have given Western Michigan the Gophers schedule, I think their results would have been similar. Maybe they pull off another win, who knows? Claeys, Sawvel etc can coach defense and I've always said that. Plus most of this year's team was recruited with Kill as the head coach.

Fleck's offense and defense won't be radically different than what Minnesota has been running. The difference is Kill/Claeys kept hitting their regular season win ceiling of 8 wins, mainly because they couldn't recruit better offensive/skill position talent. Many said this year, imagine if the Gophers just had a better QB and WRs, they would have won the west. Fleck will give them a much better chance at recruiting the higher end talent they need to win the west then Claeys would have going forward.
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So you don't think we had the talent to win 2 more games last year?
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
It probably would have been similar. Just like if you would have given Western Michigan the Gophers schedule, I think their results would have been similar. Maybe they pull off another win, who knows? Claeys, Sawvel etc can coach defense and I've always said that. Plus most of this year's team was recruited with Kill as the head coach.

Fleck's offense and defense won't be radically different than what Minnesota has been running. The difference is Kill/Claeys kept hitting their regular season win ceiling of 8 wins, mainly because they couldn't recruit better offensive/skill position talent. Many said this year, imagine if the Gophers just had a better QB and WRs, they would have won the west. Fleck will give them a much better chance at recruiting the higher end talent they need to win the west then Claeys would have going forward.
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I agree that the defense and offense schemes an set are not much different.

He just won 13 games with much lower classes of recruits. Top G5 team in the nation. He can't win 8 games next year with better talent, better facilities, and better resources? Is he an elite coach or not?
 

PMWinSTP said:
I agree that the defense and offense schemes an set are not much different.

He just won 13 games with much lower classes of recruits. Top G5 team in the nation. He can't win 8 games next year with better talent, better facilities, and better resources? Is he an elite coach or not?
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So you expect him to win 8+ games with a bunch of freshman playing next year? Especially with only 3 weeks to recruit. Come on.
 


Tlsbhansen said:
Pretty sure if the "Peej" had been here this year we would have been playing this coming Monday night...how could you question it?
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I thought you stated you were done with the Gophers after they let Claeys go? If so, why are you still posting?
 



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