Souhan: The time to judge P.J. Fleck the football coach begins now

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Souhan is a hack, how has he lasted this long?
 

short ornery norwegian said:
It's interesting that so much of the discussion around Fleck has to do with his personality and his public persona - not necessarily with Coaching and/or recruiting.

Yeah, there have been discussions about other coaches - Mason's perceived aloofness; Kill's "Country Jer" shtick; Claeys' laid-back personality; etc. But with Fleck, the personality issues seem to be more front-and-center - to the extent that some people put his personality above the record in judging Fleck as a coach.

As I have said, Fleck is not my cup of tea. I'll live with it if the team wins. But, to be clear - my personal feelings about Fleck mean that I will give him less rope than another coach that I might be more personally in tune with. For this season, I would like to see at least 6 wins and some kind of a bowl game. I can live with that.
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Well the staff clearly got out coached yesterday. What I continue to be challenged with is the lack of in-game adjustments. There will be plenty on film to study and work on before Homecoming.
 

Gophers_4life said:
The fact that this is now past 50 posts, means Souhan exactly did his job.

It was a pure opinion piece. He can say anything he wants, with as little data or intelligence as he wants. It's supposed to be a talker. Supposed to rile people, perhaps.

Mission accomplished. If you really, really wanted to stick it to him ... you'd pretend the article was never written!
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You do realize he is a columnist...
 

MZBKA1 said:
WHAT?!?!

Go read the Detroit Free Press or the Omaha World Herald. They have absolutely railed on their coaches who have produced results much better than the Gophers.

Fleck and the Gophers Football Program needs to earn respect, and that respect has not been earned in recent history.
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This. The papers will quit taking shots at the program, when the program quits doing crap like getting completely destroyed by bad Big Ten teams. Jerry Kill had this team to respectability and most things written about the program were positive. Also, you have to realize, Gopher fans and the journalistic population has seen 3 of these same type of rah-rah coaches heading the Gophers in their career. 2 were absolute failures, I'm sure they are a little gunshy to buy into PJ's snake oil salesman type persona.

Basically, just win and this all goes away. If this team goes out and wins 1-2 Big Ten games the rest of the year, the wind will be completely out of both the program's and PJ Fleck himself's sails. Gotta at least beat the bad BT teams if you want to be taken seriously going forward.
 

I think think people of sound mind know that in the Minnesota Gophers' case, it does take time to turn the program around. That is, given where they are at now experience and talent-wise. It is unfortunate that three of their top players are out for the season.

We can't really compare the Gophers' situation with Purdue's. Purdue had more intact talent when Brohm took over from Darell Hazell/Gerald Parker than when PJ Fleck took over from Kills/Claeys.

Purdue's team stayed relatively intact. The Gophers lost multiple players from the sex scandal, to early retirements due to injury/illness, and to transfers.
 


hungan1 said:
I think think people of sound mind know that in the Minnesota Gophers' case, it does take time to turn the program around. That is, given where they are at now experience and talent-wise. It is unfortunate that three of their top players are out for the season.

We can't really compare the Gophers' situation with Purdue's. Purdue had more intact talent when Brohm took over from Darell Hazell/Gerald Parker than when PJ Fleck took over from Kills/Claeys.

Purdue's team stayed relatively intact. The Gophers lost multiple players from the sex scandal, to early retirements due to injury/illness, and to transfers.
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I think you can compare. Gophs had lead in that game last year with two minutes to go. Gophs pull out the win and our season records flip. Purdue is 1-3 this year, so I don't see how you can make the "talent" argument here. Overall results are very similar.
 

There will be some serious hot seat watch next year if it's another 1-3 conference win season this year.

In college, where everyone loses players to the normal graduation cycle, hard to make "I didn't have enough time" a scapegoat. The job is to deliver results within eligibility constraints the college game. If you want pro ball, go to the pros.
 

bfast said:
There will be some serious hot seat watch next year if it's another 1-3 conference win season this year.

In college, where everyone loses players to the normal graduation cycle, hard to make "I didn't have enough time" a scapegoat. The job is to deliver results within eligibility constraints the college game. If you want pro ball, go to the pros.
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Fleck will be here until 2020 unless a huge scandal breaks out.
Fans might want to turn up the heat, but you'll just have to be patient.
 

Face The Facts said:
Fleck will be here until 2020 unless a huge scandal breaks out.
Fans might want to turn up the heat, but you'll just have to be patient.
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The patience of this fan base is impressive. Our hoops coach is heading into year 6, and it sounds like many still don't want to hold him accountable for results.
 



GopherHomer said:
You can start now - that's fine. He's 8-7...feasted on non-conference opponents and struggled in conference. More or less like every coach we have had in the last 50 years. Factually, the recruiting arc has been better than we have seen in that time-frame (outside of one Brewster year, that we all know was flawed for various reasons) so if in 3-4 years we don't see any improvement, it is very fair to start evaluating what we have.

If I'm being honest, though, I would accept Mason/Kill success because I simply just enjoy his personality. I watch every press conference and truly enjoy his program 12 months out of the year. If and when he leaves/is fired/retires I will still love the Gophers, but I really don't think I could support a coach more fully than I do Fleck. People like Fleck, in all phases of life, are the future. Tough guy/meat-head/drill sergeants are dinosaurs.

As a football coach, I will analyze/judge Fleck fairly. But as a man and personality, I am biased and will continue to root for his success. Kind of the same philosophy I hold towards Elon Musk. He is not above being criticized, but he is the best hope for humanity...much like Fleck is the best hope for our local university. If P.J. Fleck cannot lead us to greatness, I'm not sure anybody can.
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Maybe I'm just saying this because I desperately want it to be true, but I think if we can get to 8-4/9-3 for a couple years in a row (aka Mason/Kill type success) then PJ has a great chance to get us to that next level of 10-2 or better where we are competing for a conference championship and a New Year's 6 bowl game. This is especially true if it includes beating Wisconsin. I think PJ's personality is set up to capitalize on the momentum that would come with that moderate success in a way that Kill and Mason couldn't. PJ is better equipped to turn on-the-field success into better recruiting classes and increased fan turnout than those two. This is jmo, and it may be wishful thinking, but I really feel that way.
 

bizzle22 said:
Maybe I'm just saying this because I desperately want it to be true, but I think if we can get to 8-4/9-3 for a couple years in a row (aka Mason/Kill type success) then PJ has a great chance to get us to that next level of 10-2 or better where we are competing for a conference championship and a New Year's 6 bowl game. This is especially true if it includes beating Wisconsin. I think PJ's personality is set up to capitalize on the momentum that would come with that moderate success in a way that Kill and Mason couldn't. PJ is better equipped to turn on-the-field success into better recruiting classes and increased fan turnout than those two. This is jmo, and it may be wishful thinking, but I really feel that way.
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That's a lot of ifs :p
I don't buy that PJ's personality will do our program anything more than what those two did. Of the two Kill had us going in the right direction and I feel like he would have turned the corner on getting us to the top of the BIG West and on recruiting had he been able to stay healthy simply because they had a good plan in place on recruiting AND the addition of the Athletes Village/practice complex, their recruiting plan would have become even more solid. The Athletes Village is what is going to help PJ out the most. But, here I go with an if, If we have another 5 -7 year this year it is going to make recruiting a little more difficult and if next year isn't a big improvement recordwise it will continue to get more difficult for PJ to bring in top level recruits.
 


bfast said:
There will be some serious hot seat watch next year if it's another 1-3 conference win season this year.

In college, where everyone loses players to the normal graduation cycle, hard to make "I didn't have enough time" a scapegoat. The job is to deliver results within eligibility constraints the college game. If you want pro ball, go to the pros.
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The AD went all in on Fleck. Fans and the media might want to believe there is a hot seat but the AD is going to have more patience.
 



bfast said:
There will be some serious hot seat watch next year if it's another 1-3 conference win season this year.

In college, where everyone loses players to the normal graduation cycle, hard to make "I didn't have enough time" a scapegoat. The job is to deliver results within eligibility constraints the college game. If you want pro ball, go to the pros.
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What?? It's the opposite. Takes longer to turn things around in college. In most cases your first recruiting class won't really contribute much until your third year, and you can't just go out and get free agents. In the NFL you can turn over your roster way faster, and lots of rookies and free agents can contribute right away.
 

It certainly is interesting how the dialog has changed after a 5-7 season ending in 2 blowout shutouts, and a non-competitive loss to a middling B1G team this year.
 

PMWinSTP said:
It certainly is interesting how the dialog has changed after a 5-7 season ending in 2 blowout shutouts, and a non-competitive loss to a middling B1G team this year.
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Rebuilding an entire offense isn’t easy. And Maryland would have a good chance at winning the west if they were in the west.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
Rebuilding an entire offense isn’t easy. And Maryland would have a good chance at winning the west if they were in the west.
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I don't think iowa and Wisconsin are thanking their lucky stars that Maryland is in the east. Maryland was bad this year, and I bet their record will end up showing they are bad this year too.
 

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