The Thing I Admire Most About Fleck



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Has Spoofin ever seen a hill he didn’t think was worth dying on?
seriously dude - what on earth did I say in this thread that has got everyone so worked up? I didn’t rip on any coach or any player or any poster. OP said PJ hasn’t dialed back expectations and I corrected him. He absolutely did.

If I make a post stating my favorite thing about PJ is he walked on the moon - and didn’t feel the need to stay on earth like past coaches - please, go ahead and correct me. This place is unreal sometimes.
 

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seriously dude - what on earth did I say in this thread that has got everyone so worked up? I didn’t rip on any coach or any player or any poster. OP said PJ hasn’t dialed back expectations and I corrected him. He absolutely did.

If I make a post stating my favorite thing about PJ is he walked on the moon - and didn’t feel the need to stay on earth like past coaches - please, go ahead and correct me. This place is unreal sometimes.
I think it is because of your self-righteous need to "correct" folks on a continual basis. If the subject is PJ you can't let anything go.
 

I think it is because of your self-righteous need to "correct" folks on a continual basis. If the subject is PJ you can't let anything go.
The truth hurts sometimes, I guess. I apologize my self-righteous desire to be accurate in this thread has spoiled your mood.
 


The truth hurts sometimes, I guess. I apologize my self-righteous desire to be accurate in this thread has spoiled your mood.
It does not spoil my mood. I liked the original post and your need to piss all over his joy in the name of "accuracy" is just you. You asked what you did and I answered with my opinion. Drive on with your bad self Mr. wet blanket.
 

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that, for the first time since we beat Wisconsin in 2018, the mood on GopherHole is 'unspoilable'.
 
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So what were these “high expectations” that Gopher fans had in 2017 and 2018 that PJ dialed back? Maybe someone can show a poll where half of us thought we were going to win 9 games with Croft and Rhoda at QB?
 

I’m not even ripping on PJ. I’m simply correcting the OP who claimed PJ never dialed back expectations. He did for most of the first 2 years.

From PJ's first day as football coach at Minnesota. Boy, he sure was already "dialing back those expectations."

" ... like I told you before, we want to compete for Big West championships, Big Ten championships, Rose Bowl championships and national championships, and that is the vision that we start today together collectively as we move forward in the new era of Gopher football that will be very energetic."

I suspect even you aren't willfully stupid enough not to know the difference between stating the ultimate goal he had and the need to tell people that the process will take several years and will come in stages.

Then, again, anyone who spent a couple of years calling PJ "fraud, windbag, joke, liar, etc." on GH might be lacking in acumen. Although nice job at rehabilitating your image with replacing those dastardly lies of PJ's with the Auburn score at the bottom of your posts.
 




Who’s stirring the pot now?
You made a false statement. I corrected it. Really no more complicated than that.
Spoofy, everyone that follows things closely knows he dialed them back the first two years, you are correct. Why waste your breath and waste the thread?
 

There are no perfect people. However, PJ Fleck has not placed a wrong foot forward since being hired here. He will, but he has not. Spoofin has an agenda and a personality need. He will never be happy about Gopher football:banghead:. Goooo Gophers!!!!
 

Fleck, unlike some other coaches, has not attempted to dial back (long term) expectations in order to protect himself from potential failure; on the contrary, he's made it clear that he believes Gopher fans need to raise their own expectations!

FIFY, that's how i read the post and it is accurate in that context and a reasonable person who was glass half full on Fleck could see it that way. I remember Mason's frustration towards the end and IIRC he was quoted as saying there was a ceiling on how well someone could do at Minnesota due to many factors, geography, stadium, training facilities, admin support. Most of which are way more favorable now for PJ, but we haven't moved and the weather and knife wielding polar bears are still an issue.

Spoof,

Take a vacation from being the accuracy police, the suit doesn't fit you and we have dpdoll for that already.
 



He definitely dialed back expectations the first few seasons. How many times did we hear that we were one of the youngest teams in college football. We didn't have a QB with any experience. In reality, he had to lower expectations. I admire him because he has his own style of coaching and isn't bothered by criticism.
 


Which coaches didn't embrace our past?
Claeys
FIFY, that's how i read the post and it is accurate in that context and a reasonable person who was glass half full on Fleck could see it that way. I remember Mason's frustration towards the end and IIRC he was quoted as saying there was a ceiling on how well someone could do at Minnesota due to many factors, geography, stadium, training facilities, admin support. Most of which are way more favorable now for PJ, but we haven't moved and the weather and knife wielding polar bears are still an issue.

Spoof,

Take a vacation from being the accuracy police, the suit doesn't fit you and we have dpdoll for that already.
Those three things are the biggest differences in what we have now for PJ and what the other coaches didn't have. Those three things have to remain in place for the success to continue, with or without PJ.
The one thing that impresses me the most about PJ is how disciplined his teams are. We had that with Kill and Cleays let that slip, especially on the defensive side. PJ's teams don't commit stupid penalties most of the time.
His expectations for the program aren't any different than past coaches. His dialing back expectations aren't any different than some past coaches (Kill had similar philosophy). I don't feel PJ has embraced the history anymore than Kill or even Brewster did, but he has had earlier sustained success.
The admin support, training facilities and stadium are all finally in place and PJ came at the right time.
 

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seriously dude - what on earth did I say in this thread that has got everyone so worked up? I didn’t rip on any coach or any player or any poster. OP said PJ hasn’t dialed back expectations and I corrected him. He absolutely did.

If I make a post stating my favorite thing about PJ is he walked on the moon - and didn’t feel the need to stay on earth like past coaches - please, go ahead and correct me. This place is unreal sometimes.


"I corrected him." Really. How do you know what the OP's expectations were? You assume a lot. As with others, Fleck didn't dial back my expectations for the first two years.
 

Then, again, anyone who spent a couple of years calling PJ "fraud, windbag, joke, liar, etc." on GH might be lacking in acumen. Although nice job at rehabilitating your image with replacing those dastardly lies of PJ's with the Auburn score at the bottom of your posts.
Windbag, joke, liar - yep.
Fraud? Don’t remember that one.

No one on this site was more obsessed with my signature than you. Now, you are unhappy I changed it. I was pretty excited about the victory so I changed it. No effort to rehabilitate my image - I stand by everything I have ever said about PJ - including liar and those 2017 quotes you love so much.
 

Don't get me wrong; P.J. Fleck has many admirable qualities. I am not trivializing any of them. For example, his charity work is beyond exemplary.

But as a fan of this Gopher football program, the thing I admire most, and the thing that in my mind really sets him apart from past coaches, is his embrace of the Minnesota football program's golden (if long-ago) past.

As a Gopher fan, I get so tired of hearing constant carping about "50 years of terrible teams". It's self-defeating and counter-productive.

Fleck, unlike some other coaches, has not attempted to dial back expectations in order to protect himself from potential failure; on the contrary, he's made it clear that he believes Gopher fans need to raise their own expectations!

He talks about Minnesota being a sleeping giant, and frequently mentions our past championships.

I find that to be a revelation. I find it more than refreshing. And it takes guts, especially after Tim Brewster promised a Rose Bowl and then promptly flopped, and has been jeered and ridiculed since.

My hat's off to you, Coach Fleck. You have courage. Keep the faith; you've got something special going here.
 


I too was very skeptical about Fleck after rooting for Brewster, who couldn't deliver.

In reading all the posts here I think there are still a few people with FDS (Fleck derangement syndrome). Get over it. Seek help. Then, jump on the Gopher Football bandwagon and enjoy the ride!
 
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I too was very skeptical about Fleck after rooting for Brewer, who couldn't deliver.

In reading all the posts here I think there are still a few people with FDS (Fleck derangement syndrome). Get over it. Seek help. Then, jump on the Gopher Football bandwagon and enjoy the ride!
Just click on their name, select "ignore", and spoofin, they're gone from the threads.
 
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So what were these “high expectations” that Gopher fans had in 2017 and 2018 that PJ dialed back? Maybe someone can show a poll where half of us thought we were going to win 9 games with Croft and Rhoda at QB?
Certainly not "half of us" but there were many posting on here repeatedly about how PJ inherited a 9 win team and wont meet or exceed the 9 win threshold
 

Oh, you mean like this?

“By ’19, I will be able to fix the issues, but we will be young,” Fleck said Monday. “We will be older with some youth, developing depth, creating depth. Then when you hit ’20, that’s when you see a spike in, ‘Holy cow, they’re good. They’re deep, and they are becoming experienced. Wow.’

Seems to me, he was telling us exactly what would happen. But don't let that stop you from trying to convince people that you weren't a jerk in your noble Crusade against him. Don't worry, I won't forget the petty bullshit and the cheapshots.
Mulligan! You, sir, have moved to the front of the line alongside Daniel House and Rockford as my favorite poster. Carry on.
 

Recalling a school's great tradition is something you SHOULD do, if you have one. Minnesota does. It deep down tells the players what was possible before and what can happen again. Not every school can do that (admittedly, what Snyder was able to do at Kansas State might be the best coaching job in CFB history).

Like Urban Meyer has said....Minnesota has been a good program. Just in this century we have fielded many good football teams. Had some decent to good teams in every decade, in fact. What's different now is that the U is finally making a REAL commitment to doing something other than just "Maintenance-level funding" for football.

This goes back farther than one thinks. I believe it started when Bierman was let go after the 1950 season. Too many at the U got caught-up in the "de-emphasis" movement that cost many schools their programs and formed the Ivy League. Many wanted the U to go that route. Minnesota stayed near
the bottom in school support for decades. Frankly, its actually amazing that the team did as well as it did over the decades given that. That's why we should applaud the Williams, Spears, and Bierman teams, as well as Warmath's. But, we should also honor the efforts made under the other coaches. Many fans today have no idea how "upstream" those teams were rowing. Ask anyone who played for Stoll.

That said, its finally nice to see the support. I have been saying for decades that if the U only would support football at the middle of the pack level in the conference, you would see dramatic improvement on the field. Those 6-5s would have been 8-3s, and those 7-4s could have been 9-2 or better. Winning in football, believe it or not, is a NATURAL position for the U. Again, the fact that they had the winning seasons they did at the bottom of the support list establishes that, just as much as the 11-2 season does.

Tradition restored!

Yes, yes yes. That's great explanation of the situation the football program has faced almost forever.

I'm so tired of the excuses for losing here. Even when Northwestern started winning Big Ten titles in the 90s some people would say we can't do that because we don't have the rich donors they have. Always and excuse for losing and mediocrity. Be happy with a 6-5 season and a trip to Detroit for a bowl game. We might has well have joined the MAC and be done with the whole charade.
 

The Gophs have SO much great history to their program, and PJ has been great in alluding to it often...we have the single greatest football player name EVER...Bronko Nagurski....from "The Icebox of the Nation," International Falls, MN. From Wiki... The pre-eminent sportswriter of the day, Grantland Rice, listed him at the two positions in picking his 1929 All-America team. Rice later wrote, "Who would you pick to win a football game - 11 Jim Thorpes - 11 Glen Davises - 11 Red Granges - or 11 Bronko Nagurskis? The 11 Nagurskis would be a mop-up. It would be something close to murder and massacre. For the Bronk could star at any position on the field, with 216 pounds (98 kg) of authority to back him up." Since we're into changing helmet logos...I think it would be amazing to have some logo of Bronko...either his picture...or just his name....... on Gopher helmets once.
 

The Gophs have SO much great history to their program, and PJ has been great in alluding to it often...we have the single greatest football player name EVER...Bronko Nagurski....from "The Icebox of the Nation," International Falls, MN. From Wiki... The pre-eminent sportswriter of the day, Grantland Rice, listed him at the two positions in picking his 1929 All-America team. Rice later wrote, "Who would you pick to win a football game - 11 Jim Thorpes - 11 Glen Davises - 11 Red Granges - or 11 Bronko Nagurskis? The 11 Nagurskis would be a mop-up. It would be something close to murder and massacre. For the Bronk could star at any position on the field, with 216 pounds (98 kg) of authority to back him up." Since we're into changing helmet logos...I think it would be amazing to have some logo of Bronko...either his picture...or just his name....... on Gopher helmets once.

Good idea. All the Auburn players wore number 7 on their helmets, in tribute to Pat Sullivan. .
 

He's a winner, that's what I like.
 

Certainly not "half of us" but there were many posting on here repeatedly about how PJ inherited a 9 win team and wont meet or exceed the 9 win threshold
There was a small band of GHers that was beating the 9-win drum. This group either didn’t recognize the roster deficiencies on the 2017 team or their dislike of Fleck was so great that they wanted nothing more than to see him fail based on their faux expectations. Given that many of these same posters easily dismissed the 5-7 regular season in 2015, it becomes clear which camp they resided in.
 




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