BleedGopher
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Per Randy:
When Gophers defensive coordinator Joe Rossi left Minnesota in December to take the same position at Michigan State, coach P.J. Fleck knew right away what he wanted in a replacement.
• The new coordinator will run a scheme focused on stopping the run, a staple of Fleck’s complementary football plan in which the defense and offense feed off each other.
• The new coordinator will have an aggressive approach, with players arriving at the ball carrier with bad intentions. They’ll be “the one who knocks,” in the vein of Walter White from “Breaking Bad.”
• The new coordinator will be someone familiar for a transition as seamless as possible.
Those traits sound like Rossi, but they also describe the guy Fleck hired: Corey Hetherman.
Hetherman, 40, will make his Gophers debut against North Carolina in the season opener on Thursday night at Huntington Bank Stadium. He spent the past two years as linebackers coach at Rutgers, working under Fleck’s mentor, head coach Greg Schiano, and a Fleck protégé, defensive coordinator Joe Harasymiak.
“We weren’t going ... outside of the family, of what we really want as a defense and what we core believe in,” Fleck said of choosing Hetherman.
www.startribune.com
Go Gophers!!
When Gophers defensive coordinator Joe Rossi left Minnesota in December to take the same position at Michigan State, coach P.J. Fleck knew right away what he wanted in a replacement.
• The new coordinator will run a scheme focused on stopping the run, a staple of Fleck’s complementary football plan in which the defense and offense feed off each other.
• The new coordinator will have an aggressive approach, with players arriving at the ball carrier with bad intentions. They’ll be “the one who knocks,” in the vein of Walter White from “Breaking Bad.”
• The new coordinator will be someone familiar for a transition as seamless as possible.
Those traits sound like Rossi, but they also describe the guy Fleck hired: Corey Hetherman.
Hetherman, 40, will make his Gophers debut against North Carolina in the season opener on Thursday night at Huntington Bank Stadium. He spent the past two years as linebackers coach at Rutgers, working under Fleck’s mentor, head coach Greg Schiano, and a Fleck protégé, defensive coordinator Joe Harasymiak.
“We weren’t going ... outside of the family, of what we really want as a defense and what we core believe in,” Fleck said of choosing Hetherman.
Gophers adjust defensive identity under new coordinator Corey Hetherman
Former defensive coordinator Joe Rossi left for Michigan State, so Gophers coach P.J. Fleck went back to his Rutgers roots.
www.startribune.com
Go Gophers!!
