BleedGopher
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Per Mike:
It may be heresy to some, but P.J. Fleck is more substance than showman.
That’s written with the knowledge the Minnesota football coach is regarded here in Iowa and elsewhere — but especially here — as a snake-oil salesman. Fleck is considered too gimmicky, too talkative, too tightly wired, too little of what a college football coach is expected to be.
The “Row the Boat” mantra Fleck brought with him from Western Michigan to Minnesota in 2017 has been mocked across the rest of the Big Ten ever since.
Yet, here we are in the ninth year of Fleck’s Minnesota tenure. Of the Big Ten’s 17 other coaches, only Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz has been at his school longer.
The Gophers haven’t been an upper-crust Big Ten program except for when they went 11-2 in 2019, but they’re 32-24 in the conference over the last seven seasons.
That record is even shinier if you remove Iowa from the equation. Fleck’s guys just beat Nebraska for the sixth-straight time, and have won four of the last seven against Wisconsin after losing 14 in a row to the Badgers. He’s 1-7 against Iowa while at Minnesota, however.
Minnesota has the nation’s longest current streak of bowl wins with eight, six under Fleck. The last four have been Guaranteed Rate, Pinstripe, Quick Lane and Duke’s Mayo bowls, so the prestige hasn’t been great. Still, Fleck has gotten his men to take the games seriously and outperform the opponents.
www.thegazette.com
Go Gophers!!
It may be heresy to some, but P.J. Fleck is more substance than showman.
That’s written with the knowledge the Minnesota football coach is regarded here in Iowa and elsewhere — but especially here — as a snake-oil salesman. Fleck is considered too gimmicky, too talkative, too tightly wired, too little of what a college football coach is expected to be.
The “Row the Boat” mantra Fleck brought with him from Western Michigan to Minnesota in 2017 has been mocked across the rest of the Big Ten ever since.
Yet, here we are in the ninth year of Fleck’s Minnesota tenure. Of the Big Ten’s 17 other coaches, only Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz has been at his school longer.
The Gophers haven’t been an upper-crust Big Ten program except for when they went 11-2 in 2019, but they’re 32-24 in the conference over the last seven seasons.
That record is even shinier if you remove Iowa from the equation. Fleck’s guys just beat Nebraska for the sixth-straight time, and have won four of the last seven against Wisconsin after losing 14 in a row to the Badgers. He’s 1-7 against Iowa while at Minnesota, however.
Minnesota has the nation’s longest current streak of bowl wins with eight, six under Fleck. The last four have been Guaranteed Rate, Pinstripe, Quick Lane and Duke’s Mayo bowls, so the prestige hasn’t been great. Still, Fleck has gotten his men to take the games seriously and outperform the opponents.
There's a good bit more to P.J. Fleck and Gophers football than rowing the boat
Fleck is second behind Iowa's Kirk Ferentz as the longest-tenured Big Ten football coach. He's won more than he's lost in what isn't the easiest place to succeed.
www.thegazette.com
Go Gophers!!
