Why not be more skeptical of a newly hired head football coach here at Minnesota and more supportive of the existing coach?

[GopherEnEspaña]

"If you can't be good, at least be interesting". Jim Wacker's teams come to mind. They weren't good. But losing 45-41 is more fun to watch than losing 19-17.

This team is in danger of being both bad and boring. That's not a great combo. Hopefully they can correct both.

100% Well said, I've always held this philosophy for all non-blue blood programs.

It's why Mike Leach RIP is my favorite coach (among many other reasons) he stuck by his guns and ran quirky concepts that would make kids want to play for him and create a unique identity for the program. PJ's rigidity is not only frustrating but it's mind-numbing. I think the military academies run more aggressive passing schemes than us.

Hell, look at Kansas, they had less talent than FCS teams several years ago, now the run a super fun spread option offense and make games interesting.

 

[Word]

I don't see this as a scare tactic anymore. We moved on from Mason and ended up with someone worse, but we got rid of that person in less than 4 years and tried again.

To me, that's the way to do it. Don't stick with "status quo" just cuz you're afraid of the "unknown".

Do you trust Coyle to make a good hire? His best hire til now was Fleck, who you're talking about firing.

So new AD too?

 

[Word]

"If you can't be good, at least be interesting". Jim Wacker's teams come to mind. They weren't good. But losing 45-41 is more fun to watch than losing 19-17.

This team is in danger of being both bad and boring. That's not a great combo. Hopefully they can correct both.

But 7-5 is better than 2-10. The Wacker years were awful

 

[1983]

I would send him out the door if we had a program that had a chance to play for something. We have nothing to play for, will get farther and farther behind especially if the BIG goes to 20 teams and back to divisions. The divide between the haves and have-nots is growing weekly. The "haves" are growing with NIL, TV wants and a new fan base more interested in gambling than tradition. It is fun to go and see the band and the fall air with football but not fun enough here to compete with other things people do. It was unthinkable 20 years ago that founding members of the PAC10 would be in the BIG10. It will take less time for us and others like us to rearrange again with FCS programs to create a new league of the "have-nots". Keep the coach, it does not matter anymore.

 

[Bayfield Gopher]

Everyone needs to take a deep breath. It’s a long season. UNC is just one game and like Wren used to say it’s only .0833 of our season.

More people have caught on to Fleckball and I totally get their concerns. Said that, I hold very little hope that he will change in spite of what he expects from others. This is his gig and he’s gonna do it My Way like Frank Sinatra sang: “the record shows I took the blows, but I did it my way”.

 

[Breakin' The Plane]

Why ask why?
Try Bud Dry.

 

[gopherdudepart2]

"If you can't be good, at least be interesting". Jim Wacker's teams come to mind. They weren't good. But losing 45-41 is more fun to watch than losing 19-17.

This team is in danger of being both bad and boring. That's not a great combo. Hopefully they can correct both.

Wacker teams may have been interesting, but you never as a fan believed the defense would make a stop or could make a stop and the Gophers would win. It was all offense and try to out-score the opponent.
We have never been that way since some Mason, Kill, Claeys and now coach Fleck have taken over the program. Mostly solid on defense to competitive.
We have seemed to struggle to develop QB's with the exception of some play by Adam Weber and Tanner Morgan who did a lot of good things. Brosmer seems like he has talent, I liked AK at times he played really well then other's not so well. Lindsay the new QB has a lot of zip on his passes in warm-ups throws a nice football. QB's always get more scrutiny than deserved. Hoping Brosmer now that he got the first one out of the way, has time to gel with the O-line and WR's. You don't get pre-season so playing together on a new group always takes some time. North Carolina is a little better and has good athletes, they will win there share of games if the back-UP QB can pass a little.

I'm not in any way shape or form interested in moving on from coach Fleck, he has the students engaged, more than any other previous coach has(Mason had the disadvantage of the Metrodump), and that is the most important constituent group.

I sense some frustration and disappointment of offense being boring. Football season' always have there ebs, the ups and downs and change each week. So will this year, dynamics of each game will be different.

The NIL landscape has changed everything about college sports and makes it seem like you have recruit your own players every year going forward. Probably some urgency to adapt and be more innovative going forward. I Just hoping with the 18 team conference and all of the travel, the Gophers program remains on a solid/good foundation like it has been. Would I like to see them reach for a championship, who wouldn't? Coach Fleck and staff can still get us to that point. I have seen the really bad as a student, don't want to go back to the hopeless environment.

 

[gopherbadgerman]

Fleck is in his 8th season.
50-35 overall
29-32 in B1G games

take out 2019 and Fleck is 39-33 overall, 22-30 in the B1G.

Yes, I know 2019 counts in the record. my point is - Fleck has had one really good season. and in that really good season, he lost the two big rivalry games to IA and WI, and could not advance to the conference championship game.

other than 2019, his record is very equivalent to Mason and Kill/Claeys. Good, but not great. one really good season out of 8 is not IMHO the coaching equivalent of a "get out of jail free" card.

If you take out 2019 then you gotta take out masons best year and Kills best year.

 

[howeda7]

But 7-5 is better than 2-10. The Wacker years were awful

I don't disagree. But if this ends up a 3-9 team or something, you'd rather have the all offense, no defense team to watch.

 

[#2Gopher]

We could have. When Brew got fired, we could have had Mike Leach. It would have been great, and so much fun. But the administration here is too skittish to hire someone like that.

Perhaps he is a good coach, but he would have worn out his welcome big time. You can't bully your way around from what appears to have happened. Disagree?

 

[disco]

Perhaps he is a good coach, but he would have worn out his welcome big time. You can't bully your way around from what appears to have happened. Disagree?

He'd have moved on like he did at Wazzu. But he'd have been fun, and his style of football was entertaining.

We'd have never hired him as he was just coming off the Adam James thing at Texas Tech, and I firmly believe Leach was 100% in the right on that situation.

 

[GopherTheJugular]

Do you trust Coyle to make a good hire? His best hire til now was Fleck, who you're talking about firing.

So new AD too?

The ol' fear of failure, huh? I don't follow enough other sports to know how many bad hires he has made, but even if it's a lot, wouldn't the law of averages be working in our favor then? You can only lose so many hands of blackjack before you get 21, right?

Joking aside, like I mentioned earlier, we tried Brew, didn't work, and we tried again. So even if he makes a bad hire, it's worth it to keep trying.

This MN mindset of accepting mediocrity due to fear of the unknown....

EDIT: another thing to add is that there is no more need to fear a coach bringing us down and making the next coach's job even harder. Even if a team hires a Brewster-like coach and the program regresses even worse, in this day and age you can buy your way back pretty quickly. We won't need a Jerry Kill type person to come in and rescue the dumpster fire (if there is one).

 

[MaxyJR1]

Cool...now take out 2020...the covid year.

Yeah, it counts, but if you're going to cherry pick, be equal about it.

Taking out a 11 win year and not COVID is really cherry picking. Considering he also has two 9 win seasons and has gone to multiple bowls. COVID year seems to be the outlier.

However, Fleck is now 2-8 in his last 10 P4 games. 10-12 since start of 2022.

 

[restovich]

Wayne, I think the problem right this minute is twofold......

1) His offense is very boring and very predictable. He is being stubborn in not adapting it. teams find it easy to prepare to defend.
2) His manner is wearing thin. It is never a good look for a college football coach to be lecturing his fanbase. Most all of us fans realize the game is very competitive, and difficult. But P.J. is paid to generate results, not platitudes.

I think the disquiet is that the feeling is we are stagnating at this level, and the hope to get better is not there. I am personally not feeling he needs to be fired, but I do strongly feel he needs to adapt. I doubt he can stop generating platitudes, but with more and more losses, the platitudes just become like fingernails on the blackboard.

 

[short ornery norwegian]

Taking out a 11 win year and not COVID is really cherry picking. Considering he also has two 9 win seasons and has gone to multiple bowls. COVID year seems to be the outlier.

However, Fleck is now 2-8 in his last 10 P4 games. 10-12 since start of 2022.

that's my point. the Fleck supporters say the Covid year is the outlier. But - what if 2019 is the outlier?

Especially because of this - the college football landscape changed forever in 2021 with NIL and unlimited transfers. It is a different game now, so what a program like MN accomplished in 2019 is - I believe - more difficult now in a world where NIL matters and players can leave more easily.

again, I am not saying Fleck is a bad coach. But I am saying that in 11 years as a head coach at two programs, he has had two really good years and a lot of average to above-average years.

maybe it's not Fleck. maybe this is the best MN can hope to achieve as a program. but either way, I just don't see Fleck as the savior leading MN to some new heights as a program.

 

[Arminius]

Lou Hoax did more to condemn Gopher football to the wilderness years and life in the damn dome

Could be.

You might want to look in the mirror Walrus, your politics are showing.

Until today, I have never heard anyone call him Lou Hoax...one of the all-time great and legendary coaches in CF history.

Mike Leach was a Trump supporter too and at his death every coach lauded him for his impact on the game and his decency as a human being. Nobody brought up his politics. Maybe you can refer to him in a post and call him Mike Leech to be funny.

Lou Hoax...what a sad life you must live.

 

[Arminius]

Fleck is in his 8th season.
50-35 overall
29-32 in B1G games

take out 2019 and Fleck is 39-33 overall, 22-30 in the B1G.

Yes, I know 2019 counts in the record. my point is - Fleck has had one really good season. and in that really good season, he lost the two big rivalry games to IA and WI, and could not advance to the conference championship game.

other than 2019, his record is very equivalent to Mason and Kill/Claeys. Good, but not great. one really good season out of 8 is not IMHO the coaching equivalent of a "get out of jail free" card.

After 8 seemingly solid just-keep-us-relevant season by Fleck, we are itching to move to the next level, which, for most Gopher fans would be 8-10 wins year in and year out.

If PJ gives us some "backyard offense" in 2024 I think we go 6-6. If not, I should have bet the under...

 

[short ornery norwegian]

You might want to look in the mirror Walrus, your politics are showing.

Until today, I have never heard anyone call him Lou Hoax...one of the all-time great and legendary coaches in CF history.

Mike Leach was a Trump supporter too and at his death every coach lauded him for his impact on the game and his decency as a human being. Nobody brought up his politics. Maybe you can refer to him in a post and call him Mike Leech to be funny.

Lou Hoax...what a sad life you must live.

to be fair, Holtz' time at MN is somewhat controversial. Holtz came to MN, generated more excitement and produced more competitive teams. but then he bolted for Notre Dame after 2 years - didn't even stick around to coach in the bowl game.

in addition, MN was cited for NCAA recruiting violations that took place during Holtz' tenure, and sanctions were handed down including a 1-year bowl ban and two years of probation.

 

[MilosRevenge]

You might want to look in the mirror Walrus, your politics are showing.

Until today, I have never heard anyone call him Lou Hoax...one of the all-time great and legendary coaches in CF history.

Just because you haven't heard it, doesn't mean it hasn't happened.

This is from a Gopher WBB message board in 2006:

Posted April 5, 2006
Yeah, it's a bummer so far with Davis, Lacey, Broback and now Podominick gone. Went to several of the games at the Barn the past few years and nothing was evident. Will have to check with one of my inside sources. My question is tho, has Brenda Freese become the U's female equivalent of Lou Hoax?

Plenty of Gopher fans from the 80s viewed him as a snake oil salesman.

Minnesota was on put on probation after he left. Notre Dame was put on probation after he left. South Carolina was put on probation after he left. A trifecta!

 

[restovich]

Holtz. Hmmm.

The one thing he did was resurrect excitement.

I had season tickets as a student for six years, from the fall of 1978 thru the fall of 1983. The last Salem season, the 1-10 year, ALL excitement had left the nearly moribund Metrodome. We were losing most of our games by 50 or so points that year. Holtz quickly turned that back around, the next year they beat Indiana, Wisconsin, and Iowa. Foggie's first year. Holtz restored competiveness. And hope.

Then he pulled the rug out, a lot of his recruits that had been coming the the -U- went with him to Notre Dame.......ahhh crap.

But....... on balance, it was certainly better than losing to Iowa by 50 points..........

 

[Scottsdale Gopher]

2019 was the best Gopher season of my life, and is likely to stay that way. How easily we seem to forget that season was filled with Great Escapes during the non-conference schedule; the team very easily could have been 0-3 at the start of B1G play. Rather than assume 2019 was going to be some new normal in Gopher football world (Lord knows we all would like it to be), the lessons I took from it were 1) the team can improve significantly during the season and 2) Fleck is conservative to a fault.

Some seasons we are not going to improve as much as others throughout the year. But I think the bigger thing we have experienced the last few seasons is regression to the mean in close games. The fourth down conversion in the GA Southern game and the 4th down throw to CRAB against Fresno State (both from 2019) are great, improbable plays. But they are plays one could argue are available to be made due to the conservative nature of our coach. The flipside of that is sometimes you don't make the basic plays either and the whole thing appears to fall down. We went three for three in what became coinflip games against inferior competition in one amazing season; the UNC game (or BGSU) is what it looks like when we don't.

All of that is to say that I still think we have the right coach who is doing a great job overall. I think this discussion would have come up a lot sooner if these results had been distributed more uniformly.

 

[walrus]

You might want to look in the mirror Walrus, your politics are showing.

Until today, I have never heard anyone call him Lou Hoax...one of the all-time great and legendary coaches in CF history.

Mike Leach was a Trump supporter too and at his death every coach lauded him for his impact on the game and his decency as a human being. Nobody brought up his politics. Maybe you can refer to him in a post and call him Mike Leech to be funny.

Lou Hoax...what a sad life you must live.

hoax left the football program in a bad way with the ncaa

Just because you haven't heard it, doesn't mean it hasn't happened.

This is from a Gopher WBB message board in 2006:

Posted April 5, 2006
Yeah, it's a bummer so far with Davis, Lacey, Broback and now Podominick gone. Went to several of the games at the Barn the past few years and nothing was evident. Will have to check with one of my inside sources. My question is tho, has Brenda Freese become the U's female equivalent of Lou Hoax?

Plenty of Gopher fans from the 80s viewed him as a snake oil salesman.

Minnesota was on put on probation after he left. Notre Dame was put on probation after he left. South Carolina was put on probation after he left. A trifecta!

Luther Darville was the hoax “bag man”.

 

[Spaulding!No!]

I loved Bud Dry.

 

[Unregistered User]

Until today, I have never heard anyone call him Lou Hoax...one of the all-time great and legendary coaches in CF history.

He's been called that by a lot of people, and for good reason.

Coached at NC State - Fled after 1975, and NC State faced NCAA sanctions.
Went to Arkansas after a failed couple years with the Jets - Fled after 1983, and Arkansas faced NCAA sanctions.
Came to Minnesota- Fled mid 1985, and We faced NCAA sanctions.
Went to ND- Fled after 1996, and NC State faced NCAA sanctions.
Went to South Carolina- Fled after 2004, and SC faced NCAA sanctions.

All those years and won 1 (tainted) national championship at ND.
Literally left every program he coached with NCAA sanctions, and somehow was voted into the College Football hall of fame.

He's a piece of shit, and I hated that we hired him, and I was glad to see him leave.

 

[disco]

I loved Bud Dry.

I knew the last place in town that carried it. It was a store in a strip mall out near Excelsior. I used to pick it up for softball games.

 

[disco]

hoax left the football program in a bad way with the ncaa

Luther Darville was the hoax “bag man”.

I will always hate Lou Holtz for the way he left the Gophers. Gave us the tiniest shred of hope and then we ended up in the abyss for years (decades). I don't even care about the sanctions. If he'd have won anything, it'd be worth it.

 

[walrus]

that's my point. the Fleck supporters say the Covid year is the outlier. But - what if 2019 is the outlier?

Especially because of this - the college football landscape changed forever in 2021 with NIL and unlimited transfers. It is a different game now, so what a program like MN accomplished in 2019 is - I believe - more difficult now in a world where NIL matters and players can leave more easily.

again, I am not saying Fleck is a bad coach. But I am saying that in 11 years as a head coach at two programs, he has had two really good years and a lot of average to above-average years.

maybe it's not Fleck. maybe this is the best MN can hope to achieve as a program. but either way, I just don't see Fleck as the savior leading MN to some new heights as a program.

You might want to look in the mirror Walrus, your politics are showing.

Until today, I have never heard anyone call him Lou Hoax...one of the all-time great and legendary coaches in CF history.

Mike Leach was a Trump supporter too and at his death every coach lauded him for his impact on the game and his decency as a human being. Nobody brought up his politics. Maybe you can refer to him in a post and call him Mike Leech to be funny.

Lou Hoax...what a sad life you must live.

There is no political talk on this board.
Follow the rules.

 

[60's Guy]

There's a lot of sides to being good at this football thing. I think we'd all say Dabo is/was a pretty good football coach. People are screaming at him because he won't adapt to using the portal and NIL on principle. The result is....he's now pretty mediocre.

Until the Gophers build up the cooperative or get a deep pockets booster or two we are not judging things on a level playing field.

Maybe a new AD could change our money situation? Najarian was a hot name for a minute.
He was touted as someone who could raise money...that's what we need the most. Somebody who can get us higher on the NIL ladder.
Then we can complain about the coach if he doesn't win. PJ isn't winning as often as we would like but there are a lot of positives to how he runs the program off the field.

 

[gopherdudepart2]

You might want to look in the mirror Walrus, your politics are showing.

Until today, I have never heard anyone call him Lou Hoax...one of the all-time great and legendary coaches in CF history.

Mike Leach was a Trump supporter too and at his death every coach lauded him for his impact on the game and his decency as a human being. Nobody brought up his politics. Maybe you can refer to him in a post and call him Mike Leech to be funny.

Lou Hoax...what a sad life you must live.

Nothing to do with politics of Coach Holtz. I have heard other boosters and Gophers fans call him Hoax or music man. It was because there was no such thing as a Notre Dame clause in his contract, he had no buyout. He left behind the Lurher Darville scandal, the bag man that cost the Gophers bowl sanctions and scholarship losses as punishment from NCAA. Coach Holtz brought a lot of hype and had some good things but he was gone In a flash and he took a lot of the top, good recruits like Rice with him. He Holtz left the Gophers program hurting and attendance plummeted after he left. Got nothing to do with current politics or support of a political candidate at least in my own opinion. I do not speak for Wren, he can defend his own opinion.

 

[walrus]

There's a lot of sides to being good at this football thing. I think we'd all say Dabo is/was a pretty good football coach. People are screaming at him because he won't adapt to using the portal and NIL on principle. The result is....he's now pretty mediocre.

Until the Gophers build up the cooperative or get a deep pockets booster or two we are not judging things on a level playing field.

Maybe a new AD could change our money situation? Najarian was a hot name for a minute.
He was touted as someone who could raise money...that's what we need the most. Somebody who can get us higher on the NIL ladder.
Then we can complain about the coach if he doesn't win. PJ isn't winning as often as we would like but there are a lot of positives to how he runs the program off the field.

Remember: Coach Fleck has a great contract. He calls his own shots. He doesn’t take advice from message board posters.