Grading the first-year college football coaches (P.J. Fleck, Minnesota: C-)

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scools12 said:
Well let's see. Getting to the B1G Championship game the Gophers would have to win the B1G West. According to some around here the only reason Fleck won in the MAC is because he out recruited everyone else. Now based on the spectacular theory if Fleck out recruits the B1G West he will win the division based on recruiting alone and then the Gophers play in the B1G Championship.

<b>I assume even you would take winning the B1G West and playing for the B1G Championship.</b>
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Even me? You make me laugh. You have no clue how long and invested I am as a fan. Sorry I don't like super coach.

I just don't understand why now we shouldn't compare recruiting to half the conference? Isn't our goal to be at the top of the conference? Whatever, it has been a sliding scale of "can't expect this or that" for PJ since day 1 and I see it always will be.


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Spoofin said:
Even me? You make me laugh. You have no clue how long and invested I am as a fan. Sorry I don't like super coach.

I just don't understand why now we shouldn't compare recruiting to half the conference? Isn't our goal to be at the top of the conference? Whatever, it has been a sliding scale of "can't expect this or that" for PJ since day 1 and I see it always will be.


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If you want to rip PJ Fleck's recruiting at Minnesota since he may not be able to recruit to the same level of Ohio St, Michigan and Penn St go for it. Just more to add to your ever growing list of why I don't like the head coach.
 

Pompous Elitist said:
You continue to rip on Demry (along with everyone else) while defending every faux pas from PJ. It s curious.

Over the final 4 games Demry was 18/47. Conservatively there were at least 10 bad drops; IIRC Burns said 18 (which may be including some tough catches). 28/47 is about a 60% completion rate. The INT at the goal line that should have been a TD would have altered the INT to TD ratio to 5 vs 6. Not good, but Mitch-like.

Taken all together his stats weren’t great but not nearly as catastrophic as you imply. It’s a team game and this was a bad team.

PJs missteps have been well documented. Mailing it in vs Maryland on both side is the ball. Failing to take advantage of 4 Purdue turnovers and refusing to play a healthy player on the most critical drive of the game. Laying up in the second half of the NW, Mich, Wis games, presumably to keep the score down and end the games quicker. We could go on but you don’t want to hear it. I get it.
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Croft was not good but you are 100% correct that he was probably better then he looked considering he got zero help from his stone handed WR group. Croft was the best of what we had but he would have been replaced next year. Any critique of him should include the WRs because that collection of receivers we had was one of the worst ever and the bar was not set high during the Kill/Claeys era. Douglass looked ok before he got hurt but outside of him Johnson was the only one that showed any sign of promise and he dropped a ton of balls as well.

I said in my last post that the Maryland game could be pinned on the coaches. Purdue was probably shared between the coaches and players equally. As to laying up in the Michigan, Northwestern, and Wisconsin games, we were clearly beat in all 3 of those games. Did you really want to see us chucking it downfield with our awful passing game? Would it have helped to have Croft throw a bunch of picks (bad throws or deflections off of receivers hands), keep the clock stopped and extend the amount of time the defense has to be on the field? We didn't have the offensive talent to win those games, it wouldn't have mattered who the coach was. But you don't want to hear it. I get it.
 

Spoofin said:
Even me? You make me laugh. You have no clue how long and invested I am as a fan. Sorry I don't like super coach.

I just don't understand why now we shouldn't compare recruiting to half the conference? Isn't our goal to be at the top of the conference? Whatever, it has been a sliding scale of "can't expect this or that" for PJ since day 1 and I see it always will be.


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So then you expected Claeys to out recruit Ohio State? Did you bash Kill for falling short of that standard because he never came close? Of course the goal in anything is to be top of the conference but in terms of recruiting only a fool would expect us to be able to out recruit Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State in football in the current college football landscape. It just isn't realistic.
 

MNVCGUY said:
So then you expected Claeys to out recruit Ohio State? Did you bash Kill for falling short of that standard because he never came close? Of course the goal in anything is to be top of the conference but in terms of recruiting only a fool would expect us to be able to out recruit Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State in football in the current college football landscape. It just isn't realistic.
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I think that as long as it feels like the program as a whole is moving in the right direction, I can be optimistic. To me the wins and losses this year aren't the measuring stick. I am glad they didn't burn a bunch of red shirts. Recruiting is looking up. I want to recruit with tOSU and Michigan but we have to recruit with Becky, Herky, and Harry Husker first. Win the West and we have a shot at the conference title. College football is made to keep the good teams good and the bad teams bad. We have been mediocre with a shot at a special season now and then for most of my Gopher fan life. We blew it in 99 and 2003. Kill blew it against Becky. What do we expect a coach to do? Rose Bowl in year 4? So we had a five win season. Big deal. Fleck may or may not be the guy. If he is the guy it will be awesome to be a Gopher fan in a few years. If he isn't the guy we will figure that out soon enough. What is the point of nit-picking Fleck? He is not going anywhere and we are Gopher fans. Is it cool to say "I told you so" if he fails?

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This thread is in regard to grading PJ Fleck on the 12 games that were played, not on the future possibilities.
This year, I didn't see one area of improvement in this team. I cannot point to one position area and say that players got better as the season went on. I don't claim to be deeply invested in the Xs and Os of this team, so perhaps you who are can point to improvements.
On that note, and focusing only on the team that played the games, I cannot give PJ anything higher than a D. This year's team did not do well or even average. Next year's team...well...that's for a different thread.
 

scools12 said:
If you want to rip PJ Fleck's recruiting at Minnesota since he may not be able to recruit to the same level of Ohio St, Michigan and Penn St go for it. Just more to add to your ever growing list of why I don't like the head coach.
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Please find 1 time where I have ripped his recruiting. I have said nothing but good things about his recruiting. He did a great job in 2017 in 2 weeks. He seems to be doing an even better job this year. I simply asked why folks can't compare it to the whole B1G and have to only compare it to half of it. You claimed that was fact that had been shown 100s of times. Silly.


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MNVCGUY said:
So then you expected Claeys to out recruit Ohio State? Did you bash Kill for falling short of that standard because he never came close? Of course the goal in anything is to be top of the conference but in terms of recruiting only a fool would expect us to be able to out recruit Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State in football in the current college football landscape. It just isn't realistic.
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Where did I bash PJ's recruiting? What are you even talking about? I think it is fair to compare his recruiting to the whole B1G and country for that matter. That is what rankings do, right?


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MennoSota said:
This thread is in regard to grading PJ Fleck on the 12 games that were played, not on the future possibilities.
This year, I didn't see one area of improvement in this team. I cannot point to one position area and say that players got better as the season went on. I don't claim to be deeply invested in the Xs and Os of this team, so perhaps you who are can point to improvements.
On that note, and focusing only on the team that played the games, I cannot give PJ anything higher than a D. This year's team did not do well or even average. Next year's team...well...that's for a different thread.
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That is short sighted but OK.

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Spoofin said:
Please find 1 time where I have ripped his recruiting. I have said nothing but good things about his recruiting. He did a great job in 2017 in 2 weeks. He seems to be doing an even better job this year. I simply asked why folks can't compare it to the whole B1G and have to only compare it to half of it. You claimed that was fact that had been shown 100s of times. Silly.


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What’s silly is thinking the only reason Fleck won in the MAC is simply out recruiting everyone else and that is the only way he will win the B1G.


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scools12 said:
What’s silly is thinking the only reason Fleck won in the MAC is simply out recruiting everyone else and that is the only way he will win the B1G.

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Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man. I read somewhere that out recruiting is the only way to win more than 25% of your games.



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Spoofin said:
Where did I bash PJ's recruiting? What are you even talking about? I think it is fair to compare his recruiting to the whole B1G and country for that matter. That is what rankings do, right?


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You flat out said:

"I just don't understand why now we shouldn't compare recruiting to half the conference? Isn't our goal to be at the top of the conference? Whatever, it has been a sliding scale of "can't expect this or that" for PJ since day 1 and I see it always will be."

If you want to set the expectation that Fleck should be able to out recruit top schools in the country from areas that are stacked with local talent you are setting a nearly impossible bar for a Minnesota coach to reach. Our goal should be to recruit in the top half of the conference and at or near the top of the West. If we can do that we should hopefully be in a position talent wise to compete for the division each year and along with that the conference title.
 

MNVCGUY said:
You flat out said:

"I just don't understand why now we shouldn't compare recruiting to half the conference? Isn't our goal to be at the top of the conference? Whatever, it has been a sliding scale of "can't expect this or that" for PJ since day 1 and I see it always will be."

If you want to set the expectation that Fleck should be able to out recruit top schools in the country from areas that are stacked with local talent you are setting a nearly impossible bar for a Minnesota coach to reach. Our goal should be to recruit in the top half of the conference and at or near the top of the West. If we can do that we should hopefully be in a position talent wise to compete for the division each year and along with that the conference title.
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Yes, I said we should compare him to everyone. Just like recruiting rankings would. We don't need to treat him with kid gloves. That isn't bashing him. That doesn't mean I expect him to out recruit tOSU or it is a failure. WTH? But why lower the bar to "The West". The sliding scale. I think I can be objective enough to see if we ranked 2nd behind tOSU that would be pretty damn good without pretending we finished first because tOSU doesn't count. Maybe, instead, you could publish a list of all the teams we can't expect PJ to out recruit or shouldn't compare his recruiting to. Maybe we can be #1 every year then.


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MNVCGUY said:
Yeah, this coaching change has definitely polarized the fan base. I think there is a middle ground out there but it has been shocking to see the number of people in here that are convinced that the coaches were not trying to win games based on Fleck looking at the big picture and saying the results of this year won't matter in the grad scheme of things.
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I have said it, but based on the coaching we saw (or didn’t see). There is a reality that beating Wisconsin was not really going to happen this year.

Of course a putrid Gophers team in 1993 played an undefeated Badger team and beat them. Because Wacker tried and didn’t throw in the towel because we couldn’t beat Wisconsin something strange happened that day, we actually won.


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MNVCGUY said:
You flat out said:

"I just don't understand why now we shouldn't compare recruiting to half the conference? Isn't our goal to be at the top of the conference? Whatever, it has been a sliding scale of "can't expect this or that" for PJ since day 1 and I see it always will be."

If you want to set the expectation that Fleck should be able to out recruit top schools in the country from areas that are stacked with local talent you are setting a nearly impossible bar for a Minnesota coach to reach. Our goal should be to recruit in the top half of the conference and at or near the top of the West. If we can do that we should hopefully be in a position talent wise to compete for the division each year and along with that the conference title.
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I haven’t bashed his recruiting either. His philosophy and “what worked” at western Michigan was to have the better players on the field. And that worked for him there.

I believe success is a combination of recruiting and coaching.

I’ve seen improved recruiting, I saw coaching that was pretty bad all the way around.

We’ll see if improves recruiting (but not best in the conference) so far and lessor coaching changes our fortunes. It might. It might not. The average player ranking is 10th in the big ten. Not sure that will get us to where we want to be recruiting wise.


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MNVCGUY said:
Yeah, this coaching change has definitely polarized the fan base. I think there is a middle ground out there but <b>it has been shocking to see the number of people in here that are convinced that the coaches were not trying to win games based on Fleck looking at the big picture and saying the results of this year won't matter </b>in the grad scheme of things.
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Why did you not mention the multiple on-field decisions PJ made that others have pointed out as further reasoning that PJ didn't care about winning this year. He flat out said it (and never once added that "in the grand scheme of things" part you did). He had other priorities and absolutely did not do everything he could to win as many games as possible. You can agree with that approach, but to deny it happened? I guess you are entitled to your opinion but should know that sand in your ears is not healthy.


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Spoofin said:
Why did you not mention the multiple on-field decisions PJ made that others have pointed out as further reasoning that PJ didn't care about winning this year. He flat out said it (and never once added that "in the grand scheme of things" part you did). He had other priorities and absolutely did not do everything he could to win as many games as possible. You can agree with that approach, but to deny it happened? I guess you are entitled to your opinion but should know that sand in your ears is not healthy.


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I'm sometimes surprised at how frequently you post in threads about PJ.
 



Face The Facts said:
I'm sometimes surprised at how frequently you post in threads about PJ.
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I know, right? Maybe Spoofin should stick to topics relevant to the success of Gopher Football on this board. NOT on the coach. Geesh.
 

caliGopher said:
I know, right? Maybe Spoofin should stick to topics relevant to the success of Gopher Football on this board. NOT on the coach. Geesh.
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I don't feel the need to justify my posting style to FtF considering I'm not the one who was recently banned from GH.


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Spoofin said:
I don't feel the need to justify my posting style to FtF considering I'm not the one who was recently banned from GH.


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Recently banned?

That was WEEKS ago!

In the typical timings of my bannings, that's like ancient history now.
 

Face The Facts said:
Recently banned?

That was WEEKS ago!

In the typical timings of my bannings, that's like ancient history now.
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And, like this, sometimes you come thru showing a good sense of humor. You are tough to figure out FtF........


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C- ? Obviously whoever graded this didn’t factor in the spiritual growth.
That was probably posted already, but I didn’t read the thread.
 

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