Looking forward I have two overriding thoughts:
1) Fleck is the coach I’ve been waiting for my entire life: splashy and meteoric rise to prominence going from 1-11 to 8-5 to 13-1 MAC champions is a fantastic resume, he’s got a marketable vision and more importantly, goes all out to market it. His backstory is amazing from humble beginnings to the undefeated repeat champ HS seasons, getting NIU to double digit Ws for the first time in school history, improbable stint in the NFL, and finally overcoming the death of his son en route to glory.
That’s not a coach, that’s a Hollywood movie script.
Plus, he’s set on remaining in the Midwest which means Minnesota oughta be able to keep him long term, and with Mark Coyle calling the shots, that’s a real possibility.
I believe in 5 years we will see a conference title and in 5-8 years a playoff berth. I’ve never been more confident and excited about the future of Gopher football.
2) Fleck’s on field coaching this year has been stubborn and borderline arrogant. He went into both Purdue and Maryland with laughably vanilla game plans. He somehow believed he could win Big 10 games running inside zone a bajillion times, refusing to install other running plays and other constraint plays to keep the D off balance.
He’s been seemingly unwilling to tailor his gameplan to what his team can do, particularly on offense, instead focusing on installing his system and his culture with little regard for the on field results.
Fleck has been weirdly indifferent to his personnel, refusing to highlight the obvious strengths of some of his players, i.e. often throwing to Woz instead of Lingen, most unforgivably on 4th down against Iowa. Again, Lingen absolutely catches that pass and has been criminally underused this year. A lot of shoving him square pegs into round holes this season. I gotta wonder if Brandon unwittingly dipped his toe into Fleck’s doghouse somehow.
This stubborn indifference cost us at least 2 and as many as 4 games out of Maryland, Purdue, Sparty, and Iowa.
He’s talked out of both sides of his mouth—on the one hand stressing family and how he loves his team, on the other hand belittling them by telling the press that every sophomore and upperclassmen will be graduated before the team becomes ‘competitive’.
When I think ‘rowing the boat’, that statement appears totally incongruous.
So here we are. I firmly believe that Fleck will guide us to glory not seen here in 50+ years, and I’m unbelievably excited about it.
At the same time, I think Fleck has been content to piss away most of this season in a sort of bizarre power trip that he justifies to himself as ‘necessary for improving the culture’.
Fleck is a damn good football coach and leader of men.
By HIS OWN admission, he’s not much of a thinker.
I don’t know what else to say, so SKI-U-MAH let’s row the damn boat and do our best to beat Michigan tomorrow.
C’mon, Gophers. Bring the Jug home!
1) Fleck is the coach I’ve been waiting for my entire life: splashy and meteoric rise to prominence going from 1-11 to 8-5 to 13-1 MAC champions is a fantastic resume, he’s got a marketable vision and more importantly, goes all out to market it. His backstory is amazing from humble beginnings to the undefeated repeat champ HS seasons, getting NIU to double digit Ws for the first time in school history, improbable stint in the NFL, and finally overcoming the death of his son en route to glory.
That’s not a coach, that’s a Hollywood movie script.
Plus, he’s set on remaining in the Midwest which means Minnesota oughta be able to keep him long term, and with Mark Coyle calling the shots, that’s a real possibility.
I believe in 5 years we will see a conference title and in 5-8 years a playoff berth. I’ve never been more confident and excited about the future of Gopher football.
2) Fleck’s on field coaching this year has been stubborn and borderline arrogant. He went into both Purdue and Maryland with laughably vanilla game plans. He somehow believed he could win Big 10 games running inside zone a bajillion times, refusing to install other running plays and other constraint plays to keep the D off balance.
He’s been seemingly unwilling to tailor his gameplan to what his team can do, particularly on offense, instead focusing on installing his system and his culture with little regard for the on field results.
Fleck has been weirdly indifferent to his personnel, refusing to highlight the obvious strengths of some of his players, i.e. often throwing to Woz instead of Lingen, most unforgivably on 4th down against Iowa. Again, Lingen absolutely catches that pass and has been criminally underused this year. A lot of shoving him square pegs into round holes this season. I gotta wonder if Brandon unwittingly dipped his toe into Fleck’s doghouse somehow.
This stubborn indifference cost us at least 2 and as many as 4 games out of Maryland, Purdue, Sparty, and Iowa.
He’s talked out of both sides of his mouth—on the one hand stressing family and how he loves his team, on the other hand belittling them by telling the press that every sophomore and upperclassmen will be graduated before the team becomes ‘competitive’.
When I think ‘rowing the boat’, that statement appears totally incongruous.
So here we are. I firmly believe that Fleck will guide us to glory not seen here in 50+ years, and I’m unbelievably excited about it.
At the same time, I think Fleck has been content to piss away most of this season in a sort of bizarre power trip that he justifies to himself as ‘necessary for improving the culture’.
Fleck is a damn good football coach and leader of men.
By HIS OWN admission, he’s not much of a thinker.
I don’t know what else to say, so SKI-U-MAH let’s row the damn boat and do our best to beat Michigan tomorrow.
C’mon, Gophers. Bring the Jug home!
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