Is Fleck Brewster 2.0?

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Fleck is perfect for the MN program. Let's hope he stays there a long time.

Signed, The Rest of the Big Ten
 

Give it time. I think I'd take PJ Fleck's approach over Brewster's.

Under Brewster's watch, you had the "Jew-jew Crew" living off campus in a den of inequity and not going to classes. Ra'Shede Hageman was part of that crew.

When Jerry Kill came in, he cleaned housed when he found out what was going on. Luckily, he saw something in Hageman, and gave him a second chance. He told him he was stealing from the U not living up to his bargain.

It is unfortunate that Jerry Kill had to fight his health issues and eventually had to step down. I often wonder how it might have been if he was healthy.

When Fleck took over, the larder wasn't exactly stocked. PJ Fleck is continuing program building where Jerry Kill and Claeys left off. Give him time. We can criticize him in three or four years.

To compare Fleck to Brewster is totally unfair.
 

LBJ said:
Resources. Fleck has no qbs that aren’t freshmen. He is down to relying on true freshman walk-on in the secondary. His first spring practice he only had 4 olinemen who could play. His three best players are hurt.

Umm. Not a lot of resources to get started with from a depth and experience perspective. Yes I think there is talent and it continues to build. But depth and experience comes with time and I believe that we are getting closer.
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Referring to financial resources. The facilities - no one in Gopher history has had such facilities. Assistants - Brew likely had a small fraction of the assistant coach budget. Depth, definitely an issue but he did take a number of Jucos and had a couple transfers come in. There was bound to be an initial drop off from 9 wins, but if he’s a great coach then it should be reasonable to expect him to get back to 8-9 wins with this schedule. No power 5 OOC games, no PSU, Michigan or MSU, and Nebraska is way down. Not going to get much more favorable than that.
 

Fleck was a successful head coach elsewhere. He made a bad program into a winner.
Brew was never more than a position coach anywhere, and other than Minnesota, that is true to this day. He's never even been an OC or DC at any level.

That alone puts Fleck miles ahead of Brew.
 


2-3 conference wins is acceptable this year.

Losing can be excused, but there better be a whole lotta signs of mah-turity as we move forward this year.

Getting the woodshed treatment in October and November would be a very bad sign for this regime.
 

bfast said:
2-3 conference wins is acceptable this year.

Losing can be excused, but there better be a whole lotta signs of mah-turity as we move forward this year.

Getting the woodshed treatment in October and November would be a very bad sign for this regime.
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I disagree with the bold. With this year's conference schedule, 2-3 wins would be a pretty poor showing.
 

Catechol said:
Referring to financial resources. The facilities - no one in Gopher history has had such facilities. Assistants - Brew likely had a small fraction of the assistant coach budget. Depth, definitely an issue but he did take a number of Jucos and had a couple transfers come in. There was bound to be an initial drop off from 9 wins, but if he’s a great coach then it should be reasonable to expect him to get back to 8-9 wins with this schedule. No power 5 OOC games, no PSU, Michigan or MSU, and Nebraska is way down. Not going to get much more favorable than that.
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Your correct about the facilities however they just opened so it is not like he has had that advantage from day 1. As for saying it was reasonable to expect 8-9 wins from this team this year that is a bit of a stretch. Going into the year 8-9 wins was pretty much a best case scenario. This team was unlikely to win at Madison or Columbus and a good portion of the other Big Ten games would be tossups at best. In very few cases would we be heavy favorites. And all that is looking at this team fully healthy.

Now subtract the best player off of both the offense and defense and you have to rethink any expectations because few teams can survive that kind of player loss in college football.

All that said the opportunity is still there to get some wins. But without Smith and Winfield the task gets a lot tougher. Winfield especially is a crushing blow to the defense because he is an elite player who makes all the players around him better. All things considered, a 6 win season this year would be solid at this point. The expectation level for the team goes up starting next year as hopefully this will finally be a pretty deep experienced group.
 

bleedsmaroonandgold said:
I disagree with the bold. With this year's conference schedule, 2-3 wins would be a pretty poor showing.
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I think 2-3 wins would be about right. Vegas had us at 5 or 6 wins, didn't they?

We could fall short of that though, but even if so, PJ still has two more years and things should be better by 2019, 2020.
 



magpie said:
Both can recruit, neither can win Big Ten games. I feel much better about Fleck than I did with Brewster, but the results are the same thus far. What season must Fleck’s team turn the corner by? Next year? Year 4?
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I cannot believe this conversation is even occurring. There are so MANY differences between Brewster and Fleck. We, as Minnesota fans, continually jump onto the idea that coaches are failing. I do understand the failures of the Minnesota football team and specifically the coaches BUT disagree with Brewster and Fleck being compared. For starters- What did Brewster accomplish prior to coming to Minnesota? Not very much. Fleck brought a small time Western Michigan to a major bowl game and played competitively against the Badgers. When is the last time Minnesota has been competitive against the Badgers? It has been a very long time. Fleck is bringing in recruits that seem to fit the system. Yes, the process of constantly starting over gets old BUT do you really think the Gophers can find a coach better than Fleck? There is no way any big name coach will want to coach in Minnesota. One of the main reasons is our negative fan base and lack of support at games. I.E. low fan turnout. I understand a quality product needs to be on the field and providing results but come on don't write off Fleck quite yet. He has no control over these injuries.
 

Breakin' The Plane said:
Kill took the scraps Brewster left him and won a trophy game in year one. They were less talented, smaller on both lines, and yet they squeaked out a win.
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That's not what I asked. Fleck still accomplished more than Kill did prior to arriving here. That's a fact. And given the same amount of time, I think he'll accomplish more than Kill did here.
 

kschoh said:
I cannot believe this conversation is even occurring. There are so MANY differences between Brewster and Fleck. We, as Minnesota fans, continually jump onto the idea that coaches are failing. I do understand the failures of the Minnesota football team and specifically the coaches BUT disagree with Brewster and Fleck being compared. For starters- What did Brewster accomplish prior to coming to Minnesota? Not very much. Fleck brought a small time Western Michigan to a major bowl game and played competitively against the Badgers. When is the last time Minnesota has been competitive against the Badgers? It has been a very long time. Fleck is bringing in recruits that seem to fit the system. Yes, the process of constantly starting over gets old BUT do you really think the Gophers can find a coach better than Fleck? There is no way any big name coach will want to coach in Minnesota. One of the main reasons is our negative fan base and lack of support at games. I.E. low fan turnout. I understand a quality product needs to be on the field and providing results but come on don't write off Fleck quite yet. He has no control over these injuries.
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Didn't PJ say that injuries would be reduced under his watch? :p
Injuries happen. Unfortunately it has taken a couple of key players from the team in the past couple of weeks.
We'll see in two weeks if the coaches can make the needed adjustments to compensate for those losses.
 

You can try to preventative measures against injuries using modern conditioning and strength training, but injuries happen regardless.
 



GFBfan said:
Didn't PJ say that injuries would be reduced under his watch? :p
Injuries happen. Unfortunately it has taken a couple of key players from the team in the past couple of weeks.
We'll see in two weeks if the coaches can make the needed adjustments to compensate for those losses.
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They will no doubt make adjustments but some players just can't be fully replaced. A guy like Winfield is almost impossible to replace over the course of a season because of what he brings to the table. That is a little less so the case with a RB like Smith but even there, having a great back like Rodney makes the defense change its entire outlook. If you take away the threat of a game breaker at RB it allows you to play more coverage and focus on stopping the WR and QB more. Also allows you to go after the QB with more aggressiveness because you aren't worried about Smith killing you with a big run.

It isn't the NFL where you can make a trade or go sign someone, in college replacing a superstar is next to impossible unless you are one of the top end teams with great players riding the bench waiting for their chance. Most schools don't have that luxury.
 

hungan1 said:
You can try to preventative measures against injuries using modern conditioning and strength training, but injuries happen regardless.
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Which is why it was kind of foolish for PJ to claim he was going to cure that (or at least significantly improve) when he came here.
 

Face The Facts said:
Fact: Brewster's first three seasons, his average margin of loss to WI was a loss by a margin of 4.33 per game.
Since then, we have never been within 10 points with an average margin of 17 loss.

In some ways, I hope Fleck is like Brewster so if we can get our 31 point margin down to 4.33, we'll win a couple.
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I don't know why people think this is some type of validation for Brewster. Wisconsin wasn't nearly as good during those years as they have been recently.
 

The entire world expected them to win 5 or 6 games this season. They've tossed the ball around a bit and people are expecting bigger things. They lost Shannon, Rodney and Antoine.

Next year is the make or break year.
 

fraternity2017 said:
The entire world expected them to win 5 or 6 games this season. They've tossed the ball around a bit and people are expecting bigger things. They lost Shannon, Rodney and Antoine.

Next year is the make or break year.
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Next year is not make or break.

Could be make, could be break.
Could easily be something in the middle though.
 

Don’t even joke about him being Brew 2.0. If he truly was, it would best for everyone to relieve him of his duties before the sun sets tonight.
 

magpie said:
Both can recruit, neither can win Big Ten games. I feel much better about Fleck than I did with Brewster, but the results are the same thus far. What season must Fleck’s team turn the corner by? Next year? Year 4?
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No, and you know it. I feel disgusted to even be involved in this thread. Gross.
 

I really think Fleck has a good process, that should lead to better outcomes. Recruiting is the key to college football, he seems to be doing well in that area. The Metrodome and campus probably turned off a bunch of recruits in the past. I really think the new stadium and practice facilities make things much easier for Fleck and his staff.
 

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