PJ Fleck and his X's and O's

 

In many ways, the role of a college head coach is more difficult than that of a professional coach. The NFL coach doesn't have to recruit throughout the season like the college coach does. This is why you often hear about coaches being either good recruiters, but not good game day coaches, or vice versa. It's hard to find someone that can do both.

Gophers coach has had a reputation as the former. His relentless positivity seems like something that would appeal to recruits, and coming off a 13-0 season at Western Michigan, the Gophers likely hoped that the success would speak for itself and encourage a rush of new Gophers enrollees that would push Minnesota to the top of the league. 

And the Gophers standing did improve in the recruiting world. They were regularly in the 11-14th range when the Big Ten teams were rated at the end of the class period. Since Fleck, they have generally been between the 6th and 10th spots in those same rankings. Minnesota will probably never surpass Michigan, Ohio State or Penn State, but I think a lot of local fans would expect Minnesota to be able to pull prospects as regularly as Michigan State or Wisconsin, and certainly be more capable than Nebraska or Iowa. 

There have been ramifications on the field. The Gophers were in the doldrums after the calamitous end to the Jerry Kill/Tracy Claeys era, but the Gophers have finished tied for first or second in each of the last two years. They had a good team in 2020 as well, but were hampered by a difficult schedule in conference and a lack of non conference games. They have regularly beaten Nebraska, and have been in contention with Iowa and Wisconsin, to the point that it is a disappointment if they lose, and not an expectation.

Fleck didn't win at Western Michigan because of his recruiting. They were 13-0 in his final year there, and he hadn't even had a senior class yet. The Gophers are playing above their talent level fairly consistently. It's time to recognize that his attitude and locker room presence are generally good for the health of the program. Fleck, even with the outgoing, positive attitude, must be a decent game day coach. 

The Gophers and their fans are going to have to hope that's the case, because in 2022, there was a precipitous drop off. Fleck's Gophers were the lowest ranked team in the entire conference to the past year. I guess now we will really see what kind of a coach he is. 

Let’s appreciate the Gophers for a second

The state of Minnesota’s athletic history skews towards misfortune and underachievement. Look at the Vikings, for example, who made it to the NFC Championship game last year and signed a quarterback they liked to a huge contract, and now are sputtering just above .500. It is because of this history, I assume, that people are so down on what the Gophers are accomplishing this year, both in football and basketball.

First, let’s take sure we veer away from the unrealistic expectations of the Patrick Reusse’s of the world, and move into what is more feasible, and then really consider what PJ Fleck and Richard Pitino are doing. Let’s start with the football team, since Fleck is the most recently hired source of derision for local sports guys.

PJ Fleck, as you might all remember, only came to the team last season, and the program was in shambles. He didn’t have many of his own recruits,  and the previous regime left him with a walk on quarterback as his best starting option. And he got hurt half way through the season. Then there were all the injuries to his running backs, and the best defensive player in Antoine Winfield Jr. 

But then towards the end of the season, the Gophers made an adjustment, Fleck fired his defensive coordinator, and suddenly, the Gophers were world beaters, and the team ended up clobbering a ranked Purdue team and winning on the road against Wisconsin. They made an adjustment, battled through some adversity and are in a bowl game. PJ Fleck is seen as a top flight recruiter, but I think this season, if nothing else, has proven that he can coach players he has up pretty well too.
It's only Detroit, but the Gophers are going to a Bowl game in Fleck's second season. It was a strategy that Jerry Kill employed as well, getting his team to bowl games so he had more time to coach underclassmen. Wit the in season improvement that they made, one has to wonder how much the team is going to grow as they head into next season. They might even have a quarterback. It was a 6-6 season, but it was so much more than that.

The basketball team was disappointing last year, but that was as much a function of injuries striking all of their top player as anything, but Jordan Murphy and Amir Coffey are back and healthy, and are no bracketed by some emerging freshman. Not only that, but those freshman are local kids. Wasn’t that always the criticism of Tubby Smith, that he failed to recruit Minnesotans? Not the case with Pitino, it appears.

There are three freshman who look to contribute early, and are local products. Gabe Kalschuer from DeLaSalle, Jarvis Omersa from Orono, Daniel Oturu from Cretin-Derham Hall, making this a good, local class for Pitino. That’s one impressive thing about the team so far.

The other is that they are winning. They had a terrible game against Boston College, and were overmatched in Columbus against Ohio State, but then they came back against Nebraska and beat a ranked team in Minneapolis. There wasn’t much of that last season, and it showed growth after a tough stretch. 

The Gophers basketball team is a young team who has grown from their worst game of the season, the BC game, by learning from their mistakes. They couldn’t figure out the zone, and took terrible shots. They proved themselves to be coachable, however, because other teams haven’t been able to derail them entirely with the same defense. They are talented, and they are smart enough to learn from their mistakes. These things signal the beginning of a turnaround. And it’s with local players, which everyone loves, right?

The University of Minnesota has a long history of athletic mediocrity, and taken in isolation, this year is another year of the same. A closer inspection, however, shows two programs on the rise, even if local fans refuse to believe it.

Managing Fleckspectations

It took PJ Fleck three years to turn Western Michigan from a laughingstock, even in the MAC, to a BCS team. This is a timeline that Minnesota fans need to remember as the his first season in charge of the Gophers gets underway on Thursday night against the Buffalo Bulls.
Further, Fleck turned things around at Western Michigan against such respectable foes as Akron, Northern Illinois and Ball State. If Fleck would like to make his mark at Minnesota, it will be against Ohio State, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nebraska. Minnesota could make massive strides, but in their conference, it may not make as much a mark because of who they are being measured against.
A part of the turnaround Fleck had was because he was able to get players that he wanted for his system to come play for him. He didn't just magically learn how to coach over the course of his three years. The players he had at his disposal just got better because he was able to recruit effectively. Understand that his level of success this year will be limited by Jerry Kill and Tracy Claeys' ability to recruit. Perhaps Fleck can extract more from this team than Claeys could, but it's important to recognize that most of the roster came to play for Kill or Claeys and not for Fleck.
If there is a new system, and the team plays a different style on Thursday, that could be an exciting view of things to come. If they look a little flat, that's not necessarily a bad omen. PJ Fleck might be the coach that turns the Gophers' program around, but one game, and perhaps even one season won't be the best indicator of his future success.