BleedGopher
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Per RandBall:
P.J. Fleck is an OK gameday coach, a good program builder and a great motivator.
That makes him decidedly above-average at his job as the Gophers football coach, and Fleck deserves credit for Minnesota's accomplishments during what is now the third-longest tenure in the Big Ten.
This is also a transformational time in college football — and particularly the Big Ten — as conference realignment, the portal and, most importantly, the amount and manner in which players are paid makes even five years ago feel like the distant past.
With so much change creating an unsettled feeling, Fleck's message speaking to Big Ten media members on Thursday in Indianapolis felt particularly resonant for the times: "In 2024, it's OK to love where you're at."
And I really liked this from Fleck in explaining that he still believes in the root mission of college sports: "Our world has changed in this transactional world with the NIL, with the portal, with salary caps, with obviously conference expansions, new TV deals, but really the university experience is still there."
But gifted speakers like Fleck also tend to want to control the narrative. His remembering of 2023 was a good bit of revisionist history, and it can't land well with fans.
"The narrative around our place right now is, 'What are you gonna do after the disappointing year?'" Fleck said. "We just won a bowl game. There are people here just trying to get to a bowl game [for the first time] in decades, and we won our fifth in a row.
"It's disappointing, but that's what we said at the beginning," Fleck added. "When [winning a bowl] becomes disappointing, we're doing our job even better, because there's going to be ebbs and flows."
They won a bowl game after a 5-7 season, and they were only invited because good grades (which shouldn't be ignored) helped fill an empty slot. At one point last year they controlled their own destiny in the Big Ten West before a disastrous 0-4 November had them finish in a four-way tie for last in the final year of the annually winnable West.
It's fine to just stop at "disappointing" without the spin, just as it's fine for the rest of us to remember that Fleck's Gophers won at least nine games in each of the three preceding non-COVID seasons.
But my sense is that Fleck is trying to manage expectations. It's entirely possible that the Gophers will have the same record this season even if they have improved from a year ago because the schedule is considerably harder.
That wouldn't be enough for me to say "Fleck is on the hot seat," but it would be enough for a lot of Gophers backers to consider 2025 a pivotal year for his program.
It's OK to love where you are, but you can't expect most fans to love a boatload of 5-7 seasons.
www.startribune.com
Go Gophers!!
P.J. Fleck is an OK gameday coach, a good program builder and a great motivator.
That makes him decidedly above-average at his job as the Gophers football coach, and Fleck deserves credit for Minnesota's accomplishments during what is now the third-longest tenure in the Big Ten.
This is also a transformational time in college football — and particularly the Big Ten — as conference realignment, the portal and, most importantly, the amount and manner in which players are paid makes even five years ago feel like the distant past.
With so much change creating an unsettled feeling, Fleck's message speaking to Big Ten media members on Thursday in Indianapolis felt particularly resonant for the times: "In 2024, it's OK to love where you're at."
And I really liked this from Fleck in explaining that he still believes in the root mission of college sports: "Our world has changed in this transactional world with the NIL, with the portal, with salary caps, with obviously conference expansions, new TV deals, but really the university experience is still there."
But gifted speakers like Fleck also tend to want to control the narrative. His remembering of 2023 was a good bit of revisionist history, and it can't land well with fans.
"The narrative around our place right now is, 'What are you gonna do after the disappointing year?'" Fleck said. "We just won a bowl game. There are people here just trying to get to a bowl game [for the first time] in decades, and we won our fifth in a row.
"It's disappointing, but that's what we said at the beginning," Fleck added. "When [winning a bowl] becomes disappointing, we're doing our job even better, because there's going to be ebbs and flows."
They won a bowl game after a 5-7 season, and they were only invited because good grades (which shouldn't be ignored) helped fill an empty slot. At one point last year they controlled their own destiny in the Big Ten West before a disastrous 0-4 November had them finish in a four-way tie for last in the final year of the annually winnable West.
It's fine to just stop at "disappointing" without the spin, just as it's fine for the rest of us to remember that Fleck's Gophers won at least nine games in each of the three preceding non-COVID seasons.
But my sense is that Fleck is trying to manage expectations. It's entirely possible that the Gophers will have the same record this season even if they have improved from a year ago because the schedule is considerably harder.
That wouldn't be enough for me to say "Fleck is on the hot seat," but it would be enough for a lot of Gophers backers to consider 2025 a pivotal year for his program.
It's OK to love where you are, but you can't expect most fans to love a boatload of 5-7 seasons.
P.J. Fleck is trying to love the moment, but is that a tough sell for fans?
Speaking on Thursday at Big Ten media days, Gophers coach P.J. Fleck made a compelling pitch to "love where you're at" as the ground continues to move underneath college football. But he can't expect fans to love more of what they saw in 2023.
www.startribune.com
Go Gophers!!
