Keeping PJ Fleck at Minnesota

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As previously noted, Fleck is under contract through 2023.

If he wants to get out of the contract badly enough, he can get his 'new' school or their boosters to pay the buyout.

Sad but true - in major conference D1 football and basketball, coaches preach loyalty to their players, but if they get a chance to take a better job for more money, loyalty goes out the window.

so, it comes down to this. if Fleck gets a legitimate offer from another school, Coyle has to decide if he wants to get into a bidding war, and how high he's willing to go.

but ultimately, if Fleck decides he doesn't want to be at MN anymore, he will leave. If he decides he wants to say, he'll stay.
 

DarrenTheGreek said:
This is the BS that bugs me. If we win the next 2 games, how can you downplay a 10-game winning streak? If it were so easy, then how come only 3 out of 130 FBS teams currently have a 10-game winning streak? If they get to that 10-game winning streak the 10 wins would be against seven P5 schools. I don't care who you play, you go 7-0 against P5 schools that is very difficult. Stop downplaying this an enjoy the season.
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Please remove your rose-colored glasses sir.
 


DarrenTheGreek said:
This is the BS that bugs me. If we win the next 2 games, how can you downplay a 10-game winning streak? If it were so easy, then how come only 3 out of 130 FBS teams currently have a 10-game winning streak? If they get to that 10-game winning streak the 10 wins would be against seven P5 schools. I don't care who you play, you go 7-0 against P5 schools that is very difficult. Stop downplaying this an enjoy the season.
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Yep,

If we go 9-3 with losses to Iowa, PSU and Wisky, that is a tremendously successful season for year 3 and I would definitely give him a raise. It doesn’t matter who we beat, 9 wins is 9 wins.


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Blitzkrieg said:
Please remove your rose-colored glasses sir.
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That's my whole point. My glasses have never been rose colored because I'm only in my 40's. The current streak is something that hasn't been accomplished in over 70 years. Enjoy it for what it is, something unique that only the eldest of MN fans have ever seen.
 


die hard gopher said:
Yep,

If we go 9-3 with losses to Iowa, PSU and Wisky, that is a tremendously successful season for year 3 and I would definitely give him a raise. It doesn’t matter who we beat, 9 wins is 9 wins.
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Unless you're Tracy Claeys, then 9 wins gets you fired.
 


dpodoll68 said:
Unless you're Tracy Claeys, then 9 wins gets you fired.
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Say it right. Player gang bangs, threatened bowl game player strikes, and publicly throwing your bosses under the bus are what get you fired if you win 9 games with one of the easiest schedules in recent team history.
 
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Cruze said:
Say it right. Player gang bangs, threatened bowl game player strikes, and publicly throwing your bosses under the bus are what get you fired if you win 9 games with one of the easiest schedules in recent team history.
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Doesn’t fit the narrative.


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Glen Mason talked a little bit about PJ Fleck at Minnesota yesterday and had some interesting takes. He said it was probably a bit premature to sign him to a long term deal but if they thought he was their guy then you gotta do what you gotta do and get it done. He also said he would like to see kind of a poison pill to the deal where he had to pay back anything left in the contract. So if you signed him to a 10 year deal at 7 million a year and he left after a year he (or someone else) would owe 63 million, i.e the balance of the deal. These weren't his exact words - I am paraphrasing but it was the gist of it.

I kind of liked that. The school is on the hook for big bucks if they decide to fire him and they owe the balance - the reciprocal should also hold true.
 

We know no Gopher coach has left in 34 years. How many B1G football coaches have left to take a better job in that time? Gary Andersen bailed out Oregon State, but that was hardly an upgrade. Bielema to Arkansas is one. Nick Saban to LSU. Bill O'Brien and Greg Schiano went to the NFL. That's 4 and half of them were to go pro.
 

Cruze said:
Say it right. Player gang bangs, threatened bowl game player strikes, and publicly throwing your bosses under the bus are what get you fired if you win 9 games with one of the easiest schedules in recent team history.
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Oh, and I almost forgot. To get fired with a 9 win season your football team also must have a substandard culture that needs improving by a new coach who puts an emphasis on teaching players to be productive citizens and good leaders who strive to be positive examples in their communities and for younger Gopher players, new recruits, and Minnesota youth football players who dream about playing for the U someday.
 
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Cruze said:
Say it right. Player gang bangs, threatened bowl game player strikes, and publicly throwing your bosses under the bus are what get you fired if you win 9 games with one of the easiest schedules in recent team history.
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Thats not why he got fired though. Claeys was fired the day Coyle was hired. Never believed in Claeys but Coyle couldn't fire him after he won 8 games. Then this came up and it gave him an excuse. I don't remember where but this all came out.
 
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We need a couple of quick losses to put this thread to bed.
 

die hard gopher said:
Thats not why he got fired though. Claeys was fired the day Coyle was hired. Never believed in Claeys but Coyle couldn't fire him after he won 8 games. Then this came up and it gave him an excuse. I don't remember where but this all came out.
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That Tracy Claeys was so lacking in self awareness of how badly some of the things he said would sound to others and so lacking in political awareness that he could not see the sharks swimming towards him amply displays how out of his league the guy was as Gophers head coach. He did very well that season without a doubt. As a parallel, John Gutekunst was left behind a good team by Lou Holtz that he got to a bowl the next season when there were fewer bowl games and it was harder to make them, but the team slid further and further out to sea until Gutey finally had to go. By then the quality of replacement candidates had fallen so far from what we could have had after Holtz had we gone outside the program instead of promoting from within that we wound up with Jim Wacker. If we'd let Claeys stick around, I think we'd be down in the dumps with the likes of Illinois this season with Claeys as a dead man walking like Lovie Smith. If we lose Fleck, at the very least the quality of the replacement candidates will be superior to what we'd be looking at if we fired Claeys after a 4-8 (3-6) type of season.
 
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Cruze said:
Say it right. Player gang bangs, threatened bowl game player strikes, and publicly throwing your bosses under the bus are what get you fired if you win 9 games with one of the easiest schedules in recent team history.
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I wasn't aware that consensual group sex was illegal and would get a coach fired. Interesting.

Claeys was fired because Coyle didn't hire him and wanted to hire his own football coach, just like he did at Boise St. and Syracuse. The rest is just noise.
 

Cruze said:
Oh, and I almost forgot. To get fired with a 9 win season your football team also must have a substandard culture that needs improving by a new coach who puts an emphasis on teaching players to be productive citizens and good leaders who strive to be positive examples in their communities and for younger Gopher players, new recruits, and Minnesota youth football players who dream about playing for the U someday.
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*Wanking motion*
 

Sports_Realist said:
That Tracy Claeys was so lacking in self awareness of how badly some of the things he said would sound to others and so lacking in political awareness that he could not see the sharks swimming towards him amply displays how out of his league the guy was as Gophers head coach. He did very well that season without a doubt. As a parallel, John Gutekunst was left behind a good team by Lou Holtz that he got to a bowl the next season when there were fewer bowl games and it was harder to make them, but the team slid further and further out to sea until Gutey finally had to go. By then the quality of replacement candidates had fallen so far from what we could have had after Holtz had we gone outside the program instead of promoting from within that we wound up with Jim Wacker. If we'd let Claeys stick around, I think we'd be down in the dumps with the likes of Illinois this season with Claeys as a dead man walking like Lovie Smith. If we lose Fleck, at the very least the quality of the replacement candidates will be superior to what we'd be looking at if we fired Claeys after a 4-8 (3-6) type of season.
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I don't agree with that at all. I am very happy with Fleck and believe he can take our program to new heights but I believe if we would have held on to Tracy, we still would have been able to get that to that 8-9 win level most years.

Had we kept Tracey, he would have been able to tout a 9 win season, the best in 13 years, and an 8+ win season 3 out of the last 4 years to finish off the 2017 class and start the 2018 class(yea, yeah, I know Kill was the HC for two of two of those but same staff).

And even if recruiting would have taken a tail dive with Tracy, we would have always been able to get the Eric Murray's of the world, the Cedric Thompson's and Jimmy Ward's of the world, the BBC's, Damien Wilson's, David Cobb's, Maxx's Jalen Myrick's of the word etc. Guys that barely had any other offers. I mean Murray would probably have ended up at UW Whitewater if we wouldn't have taken him. No matter how poor of a recruiter Tracy would have been, we would have always be able to get those types of players.
 


dpodoll68 said:
Claeys was fired because Coyle didn't hire him and wanted to hire his own football coach, just like he did at Boise St. and Syracuse. The rest is just noise.
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If that's your position, why did you on the previous page say "Unless you're Tracy Claeys, then 9 wins gets you fired."? By your above statement, wins and losses had as much to do with it as the player conduct and the management dispute.
 

Ski U Master said:
If that's your position, why did you on the previous page say "Unless you're Tracy Claeys, then 9 wins gets you fired."? By your above statement, wins and losses had as much to do with it as the player conduct and the management dispute.
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That's not my position, that's fact.

None of the win/loss record, "player conduct," or management dispute had anything to do with it. That is, indeed, the point. He was going to be fired regardless.
 

dpodoll68 said:
That's not my position, that's fact.

None of the win/loss record, "player conduct," or management dispute had anything to do with it. That is, indeed, the point. He was going to be fired regardless.
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Do you have evidence to support those claims? Sounds more like an opinion to me.

Tbh, I was pretty disappointed when he was extended in the first place. He had no business being a Big Ten head coach. He looked clueless on the side line, and he was not a good look for the program. My opinion. Feel free to disagree.


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All it would take to keep Fleck at the U is the promise of a statue outside TCF Stadium of PJ and Heather with their paddles/oars.
 

If the team wins the next two games, he deserves an extension. 8-0 would do it for me. An extension would be a nice boost for our coach going into November. Everyone has an ego that needs to be rewarded.
 

Wow. It had been at least several days since we last had a thread debating why TC was fired.

Regardless of the reason, at this point it doesn't matter. Everyone has moved on except Gopherhole.
 

PitinoFan said:
Do you have evidence to support those claims? Sounds more like an opinion to me.

Tbh, I was pretty disappointed when he was extended in the first place. He had no business being a Big Ten head coach. He looked clueless on the side line, and he was not a good look for the program. My opinion. Feel free to disagree.


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I don’t remember where but I do remember it coming out somewhere that Coyle was always planning on firing Claeys long before the scandal.


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PitinoFan said:
Do you have evidence to support those claims? Sounds more like an opinion to me.

Tbh, I was pretty disappointed when he was extended in the first place. He had no business being a Big Ten head coach. He looked clueless on the side line, and he was not a good look for the program. My opinion. Feel free to disagree.


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So, because you didn’t like his look you ignore the 9 wins...and the fact he completely made Mike Leach look like he’d never coached a football game before?
 

60's Guy said:
So, because you didn’t like his look you ignore the 9 wins...and the fact he completely made Mike Leach look like he’d never coached a football game before?
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He’s was a fine D coordinator (I don’t know what happened at Wash St). I’m saying he wasn’t a good long term option at HC. Again, my opinion, and since he hasn’t been given another HC opportunity after those 9 wins, it’s likely also the opinion of ADs of teams with HC vacancies over the past few years.


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die hard gopher said:
I don't agree with that at all. I am very happy with Fleck and believe he can take our program to new heights but I believe if we would have held on to Tracy, we still would have been able to get that to that 8-9 win level most years.

Had we kept Tracey, he would have been able to tout a 9 win season, the best in 13 years, and an 8+ win season 3 out of the last 4 years to finish off the 2017 class and start the 2018 class(yea, yeah, I know Kill was the HC for two of two of those but same staff).

And even if recruiting would have taken a tail dive with Tracy, we would have always been able to get the Eric Murray's of the world, the Cedric Thompson's and Jimmy Ward's of the world, the BBC's, Damien Wilson's, David Cobb's, Maxx's Jalen Myrick's of the word etc. Guys that barely had any other offers. I mean Murray would probably have ended up at UW Whitewater if we wouldn't have taken him. No matter how poor of a recruiter Tracy would have been, we would have always be able to get those types of players.
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The problem is five of the eight guys you mentioned are DBs. I don't care how many gems he could find, if none of them are QBs or lineman I don't see it working out that well in the B1G. Also the empty cupboard at QB post Leidner would've been a huge hurdle for Claeys just as it was for Fleck. Not sure Tracey overcomes that as quickly as Fleck has.
 
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