This is a fireable offense

[Gilthorp57]

Per 247: State of Indiana had eight 4* players in 2025 and one went to Indiana. six in 2024, one went to Indiana. Four in 2023, none went to Indiana. So far for 2026, there are no 4* rated players in Indiana.

4 And 5 stars were extremely rare in Indiana when I was in high school is the point I'm making. Far more in the past 10 years.

 

[GopherTheJugular]

Fleck was gifted a program rebuilt by Kill and co., and has run it into the ground.

If anything is running this program into the ground, it's unlimited NIL/tampering and unlimited transfers without having to sit.

Fleck has this program above water, although not where we'd like. Kill would be struggling to maintain an FCS-level roster in this environment.

 

[stocker08]

It all comes down to the @ NW game.

We'll win at home against Mich State and Wisc. You can go ahead and book those.


Losing @ NW by 1 point and having that 1 point be a massive step change from "solid season" to "ho hum", is neither reasonable or fair on your part.

When you only play 12 games in a season, two of which are against "cupcakes" (Buffalo & NW Tech), and another two (OSU/Oregon) are massive longshots.....a game or two makes a BIG difference. Beating Cal like we should have, would have provided a nice cushion. But the team threw that game away. And the difference between an 8-4 (6-3) and a 7-5 (5-4) season is fairly significant. In particular when it comes down to bowl pecking order. 8-4 likely gets us to Vegas or Nashville. Good shot at playing a ranked team in good matchup. 7-5 likely lands us in another bowl game that few outside of the fanbases of teams playing care anything about.

So yeah.....if we happen to lose by "1 point" to Northwestern.....it will probably end up being another ho-hum season looking back. That's if we hold down the fort against MSU and Wisconsin.

 

[gopherbadgerman]

So you’d be satisfied with that ceiling? What if I told you Iowa has won 11 more games than Minnesota has since Fleck has been here? And five of those wins were in Fleck's first two years. If you want to make the playoffs and be a conference title contender consistently then sure chase the next Cignetti, I think it’s a pipe dream personally, but if just a smaller step up to Iowa is your goal then I think Fleck is a much safer bet to eventually get there with help from coordinators versus chasing a new HC.

Yes I’d take Iowas ceiling. 2 Citrus bowls a Outback bowl 2 music city bowls.
Iowa is 24 games over .500 since 2017
Fleck is one game under .500
Those are B10 games

 

[disco]

If anything is running this program into the ground, it's unlimited NIL/tampering and unlimited transfers without having to sit.

Fleck has this program above water, although not where we'd like. Kill would be struggling to maintain an FCS-level roster in this environment.

Everyone else is playing in the same free for all environment.

 

[Some guy]

Yes I’d take Iowas ceiling. 2 Citrus bowls a Outback bowl 2 music city bowls.
Iowa is 24 games over .500 since 2017
Fleck is one game under .500
Those are B10 games

I think everyone would take that. And then once they had that they’d want more.
See Wisconsin fans
See Iowa fans who have wanted Ferentz fired for football reasons

 

[swede2]

One would argue the culture needed to be changed... unless you are cool with sexual assaults, team boycotts, etc.

Sexual assaults? I recall the lewd incident where there was a lady wanting to set some kind of Dinkytown sexual escapade record and a good portion of the team were inclined to oblige, and the lady later decided she regretted her decision, and no charges were filed against any of the team. I'm not condoning what occurred. It's disgusting, but there's no evidence of any crime.

 

[MNfootballfan]

Sexual assaults? I recall the lewd incident where there was a lady wanting to set some kind of Dinkytown sexual escapade record and a good portion of the team were inclined to oblige, and the lady later decided she regretted her decision, and no charges were filed against any of the team. I'm not condoning what occurred. It's disgusting, but there's no evidence of any crime.

You are right... but the lawsuit wasn't dropped until 2019. When he took over it was still accusations of sexual assaults and a month after he was hired 4 players were expelled from the university.

 

[Gophergrandpa]

So, in summary: PJ isn’t great, but we likely can’t do any better so let’s not even try. Go Gophers!

Who do you have in mind that would be better than PJ and would come to Minnesota for PJ’s salary? Seriously, who? PJ is superior to most of what’s out there in so many respects. He isn’t the greatest x’s and o’s tactician, however. Nor are his low-paid coordinators, unfortunately. Before you ever lose a guy like PJ, who has done so much good for the team, the U should come up with more money so that he can entrust x’s and o’s, and game day strategy, to a couple of experienced, canny, creative chess-playing coordinators who could maximize the variable talent we’ve got versus our varied opponents. If he hits a ceiling, a disappointing ceiling with top-notch coordinators, so be it. Maybe then time to roll the dice.

 

[PMWinSTP]

Who do you have in mind that would be better than PJ and would come to Minnesota for PJ’s salary? Seriously, who? PJ is superior to most of what’s out there in so many respects. He isn’t the greatest x’s and o’s tactician, however. Nor are his low-paid coordinators, unfortunately. Before you ever lose a guy like PJ, who has done so much good for the team, the U should come up with more money so that he can entrust x’s and o’s, and game day strategy, to a couple of experienced, canny, creative chess-playing coordinators who could maximize the variable talent we’ve got versus our varied opponents. If he hits a ceiling, a disappointing ceiling with top-notch coordinators, so be it. Maybe then time to roll the dice.

Pretty sure he left money in the pot. Agree there should be even more for the assistants.

Rhett Lashlee - Wikipedia

share.google

 

[GopherGrit]

When you only play 12 games in a season, two of which are against "cupcakes" (Buffalo & NW Tech), and another two (OSU/Oregon) are massive longshots.....a game or two makes a BIG difference. Beating Cal like we should have, would have provided a nice cushion. But the team threw that game away. And the difference between an 8-4 (6-3) and a 7-5 (5-4) season is fairly significant. In particular when it comes down to bowl pecking order. 8-4 likely gets us to Vegas or Nashville. Good shot at playing a ranked team in good matchup. 7-5 likely lands us in another bowl game that few outside of the fanbases of teams playing care anything about.

So yeah.....if we happen to lose by "1 point" to Northwestern.....it will probably end up being another ho-hum season looking back. That's if we hold down the fort against MSU and Wisconsin.

You're entitled to your opinion, obviously.

Mine is: 8-4 + Vegas/Music City is Good.
7-5 + Pinstripe-type bowl is OK
6-6 + Detroit-type bowl is Ho-hum

I think mine is better and fairer than yours, but obviously it's just opinions

 

[GopherGrit]

I don’t think you can book any.
Purdue hasn’t won a big ten game since 2023 and we easily could’ve lost that game

We beat Purdue, Rutgers, and demolished Nebraska at home.

We're going 5-0 at home. The only possibly caveat is injuries.

 

[GopherGrit]

So we agree, thanks.

It's two different things being argued, as if they are the same.

I agree with the other poster, and I don't think it's disputable at all, that hockey in Minnesota "takes away" some athletes who otherwise could have/would have been DI football players, and maybe stayed to play for the U.

A completely different argument is if this fact is responsible for what Gopher football is. In that case, I agree much more with you ... there are better reasons to explain it.

 

[GopherGrit]

He's lost one B1G conference game since taking over at Indiana. 8-1 last year, which has never happened at Indiana. Its best conference season record before he arrived was six wins, that's happened only twice in the history of Indiana football.

I've acknowledged multiple times that he has done a great job of winning all the games that they were supposed to win. Which is every single game other than Mich, OSU in 2024 and Iowa, Oregon in 2025.

Four games out of 24 .... that's not that impressive to me. When so far they haven't won a league title (and I don't think will) and haven't done anything in the playoff.

 

[Some guy]

We beat Purdue, Rutgers, and demolished Nebraska at home.

We're going 5-0 at home. The only possibly caveat is injuries.

I could see gophers going 8-4
I could see them going 5-7
I would be surprised by anything inside of that range

 

[GopherTheJugular]

Everyone else is playing in the same free for all environment.

Yep, and other programs (like WI) are being "run into the ground" too. I don't think your comment disproves my point.

 

[PMWinSTP]

I've acknowledged multiple times that he has done a great job of winning all the games that they were supposed to win. Which is every single game other than Mich, OSU in 2024 and Iowa, Oregon in 2025.

Four games out of 24 .... that's not that impressive to me. When so far they haven't won a league title (and I don't think will) and haven't done anything in the playoff.

As they say, hindsight is 20/20. How exactly did you determine all the games Indiana were supposed to win? You certainly didn't look at history because in the past 25+ years, that program has averaged 4-5 wins total a season (2-3 conference wins), including nine seasons where it won one conference game and two were it was winless in conference. If you use real data, Cignetti has completely blown away expectations. Indiana was the worst team in the B1G in 2023 (one conference win), and made the CFP in 2024.

How you don't find what he has done as impressive is completely mind boggling.

 

[GophersInIowa]

I’m not a Kill bobo but I think if you had been in his shoes to clean up Brewster’s mess ya might have been a little sensitive about some of the stuff PJ blasted away with, too.

I mean at the time of the comments the situation wasn't very good either. Sexual assault situation, top players threatening to leave, etc. Fleck had to work hard to get Winfield to stay when it looked like he was long gone.

Kill's statement about it "being a gold mine" was ridiculous when you see how thin some position groups were, most notably QB and OL. It was better than what Brewster left but there were still lots of issues. Kill made it seem like it was just this great situation all around.

 

[Gopherchase]

I mean at the time of the comments the situation wasn't very good either. Sexual assault situation, top players threatening to leave, etc. Fleck had to work hard to get Winfield to stay when it looked like he was long gone.

Kill's statement about it "being a gold mine" was ridiculous when you see how thin some position groups were, most notably QB and OL. It was better than what Brewster left but there were still lots of issues. Kill made it seem like it was just this great situation all around.

I was pretty sure three solid starters were there on the OL that continued into PJ’s reign.