Link: Tuesday presser: Fleck previews Iowa
COACH FLECK: First and foremost, welcome, everybody, appreciate all the attention you give our program. Thanks for being here on your busy schedules, means a lot. I want to start by wishing all of our Minnesota high school coaches and student athletes a ton of success as they start the playoffs tonight. Really looking forward to following all of you. Should be a really exciting playoff with a lot of elite teams this year and a lot of awesome matchups, so we're looking forward to that. Second, I want to thank Mortenson Construction. I got a chance to go through the Athletes Village yesterday and get the whole tour, and I hadn't had a tour for a while and, you know, I was -- last time I was in there, the sheetrock wasn't even up and it was just a lot of open spaces. It's starting to come together, and they don't get enough credit in terms of how hard they work. I think everybody just sees the progress, thinks it's beautiful, and the Athletes Village is a gamechanger and it's because of all those workers out there every single day, and just truly appreciate their elite work, and never goes unnoticed. So thank you so much for the commitment that you've made to our facility and to the University of Minnesota and our student athletes. And I know one day your work will be done here, you'll move on to another one, but the work you're doing is going to last a long time based on the results we get inside this program, on the field, off the field, and in recruiting. We're very happy to be 1-0 in our new season with the Illini. It was really good to win homecoming and for past, present and future Gophers. We were very excited for that, that it came out on the, you know, 24-17 victory in the scoreboard, so really happy about that. I'm sure everybody had a great night and enjoyed themselves but now we've got another challenge ahead of us. We get into rivalry week here but I'm sure you have a lot of questions and we're really excited about the opportunity we have. We're 0-0 the way we look at it, one-game seasons, and we have to be way better this week than we were last week and we have a lot of things to get better at. So, open it up for questions.
Q. P.J., what have you learned since you've been here from your fans and from your players about the Minnesota-Iowa rivalry?
COACH FLECK: Well, the great thing is, I might not have a lot of ties to the state of Minnesota in terms of where I was from and where I've coached, but I did recruit it in my first year at Northern Illinois -- but I grew up in Big 10 country in Chicago, I grew up in it. I got a chance to follow all the rivalries and I always thought that was really neat. I always used to play the video games, too, and NCAA, and you play for all the trophy games and you educate yourself that way. But when you actually start to think about the history, Floyd of Rosedale and 1935 and how it originated, and what it was made from and the Governors and the bets -- the bet they had, it's just very special. This is why you play in the Big 10 and this is why you coach in the Big 10. This is why you come to the University of Minnesota to play in all these historic rivalries. It's very important. It's the next game and I never want our players to have to play so much better in one game because it's this game and then slough off in another game because it isn't a rivalry. You have to be able to keep the balance throughout the season, of continue to change your best, continue to grow, continue to grow in all the fundamentals and details as a player, as a coach and evolving through our culture and through our systems, as well. But it's an honor. I'm really honored to be able to coach in this rivalry and represent our team to be able to represent the past, present and future Gopher teams. But it means a lot. It really does. This is a -- it really is a dream come true, to be honest with you, to be coaching in games like this, and it's going to be a heck of an environment at Kinnick Stadium, we know that, 5:30 kickoff. I don't know if you call that a night game or a mid-day game, I'm not sure what you call that with a 5:30 kick-off, but it will be dark soon enough, I know that.
Q. P.J., this team went from one of the most penalized teams in college football last year to one of the least penalized this year --
COACH FLECK: You're talking about our team?
Q. Yes, your team. Is there are more punishment for penalties in practice or how did you clean that up?
COACH FLECK: Well, punishment is not the word I would use. Discipline, I would use, absolutely. I think we're a very disciplined football team, I think we're a very disciplined culture. You're going to be held accountable for your actions in a good way and in a bad way, right. I mean, if you do something great and get into one of your majors, we celebrate that in our team meeting. Jaylen Waters, one of our linebackers, just got into his business marketing degree, got into that school, so we celebrated that as a football team today. So all the accomplishments we're going to continue to celebrate, hold them accountable for our GPA and our grade point average to continue to go up. Their life off the field continues to get better. We'll hold them accountable to doing all those things, that plus-three mentality in all four areas but, also, when you look at on-the-field discipline, I think there's so many examples throughout the country every week that we show our players, right, every Tuesday or every Sunday, of whether it's the NFL. or whether it's college football, of people not being disciplined and how it cost them. It's not just, "Don't do this." That's not what this program is about, not a bunch of don'ts, don'ts, don'ts, don'ts. It's here's why we educate to do this instead of this, and then we show them reasons and back that up with -- there is a lot of things that you saw with middle fingers here and middle fingers there during the game and we do everything we can to teach the players don't let the circumstance dictate your behavior. It's a very emotional game but you have to be able to direct your energy towards the things that are really important, and playing the game the right way, focusing on your teammates, celebrating with your teammates, not letting the outside noise affect you, but being strong enough to hold on to the core values of the culture and continue to be an example of that. So we take pride in that, you know. You know, I think we're playing on the edge, you know, we're playing hungry, playing disciplined. And I'm proud of that.
Q. How about Demry Croft, how do you make sure he grows every week, not put too much on his plate, give him enough that he can grow in confidence?
COACH FLECK: Yeah, Mike, I think that was my fault last week. You know, I think -- maybe I took for granted the 10 minutes that he played against Michigan State, like we all did. We all went in there, "Holy cow," and I think every single one of you said, "Hey, Demry should be starting next week." I think everybody kind of had that type of thought. And maybe I -- again, it falls back on me, everything in this program falls back on me, and when a kid doesn't have the success in his first true start, you know, I take that personally and I've got to be better at getting him prepared. We might have to do some other things and keep a tighter game plan, even when we might have thought it was tight, maybe become even a little bit tighter of what he can do, what he's not able to do yet, what he's comfortable with. I guess it's not really what he can and can't do, he can do a lot, he's very talented, but what is he comfortable doing in terms of his first start, first year playing, and having the ability to be the guy. So I thought we'd done a tremendous job of that this week. Coach Ciarrocca, who's just every week continues to make better game plans and better game plans, based on the strength of our football team. Year one at Western Michigan, we were able to do certain things and we were able to do -- weren't able to do certain things, based on the type of team you have. By year four, we were doing everything we'd ever dreamed of wanting to do with our system, so it comes in stages and really depends on the development of your quarterback, and, you know, we have had, now, two quarterbacks play but, again, you just don't give up on somebody because they made a few mistakes. Those mistakes go on me. I've got to be better at putting them in better situations and more successful situations as a coach, and continue to develop him every day and promoting success, getting him to do successful things and eliminating those weaknesses, once he shows maybe that's not what he's strong at right now. Because there's, you know, not a lot of time to get that better. There's not an off-season tomorrow, we still got games to play, so we've got to be able to take that and run with it.
Q. Some news today about a former commit to the Gophers in 2016 who passed way who has ties to a bunch of players in that class. Do you know of that, and do you plan to talk to the team about it or help them out in any way?
COACH FLECK: Oh, absolutely. You know, what we'll do is, I'm going to gather more information about it and, absolutely, you know -- I mean, one thing about this is any time you lose a student athlete, at some point, it's very tragic and affects people in different ways. You know, whether it's John Celestin's father or Rey Rey's cousin or Rey Rey's best friend or Chris Bell's best friend, who were all killed, you know, and I could go on. All of our players have something that affects them that way. But when it's in-house, at some point, whether I was here or not here, you know, you have to make sure that you -- you are very compassionate toward all their needs and we'll definitely be on that. As I continue to gain more information on it -- just like you, it's pretty new so I want to be able to gain all the information I can on that. But I will say this, our thoughts, prayers, hearts go out to the families, and, again, we'll talk a little bit more about that as I gather more information but it's what I know at this time.
Q. Asked you about the running back rotation after the game. How do you balance -- okay, you got certain plays that you want to get the ball to Rodney or Shannon versus just kind of the flow of the game, a guy gets hot, you stick with him. How do you sort of balance and walk that line?
COACH FLECK: Well, I'll be honest with you, I'm not sure that -- you know, I think we have three really talented backs and I'm not sure which one gets hotter and which one gets colder. I think they all play really well and I think that it's up for us as a coaching staff to make sure that what their true strengths are and what plays they're really good at, that it just becomes second nature for them. They rarely struggle in the plays that they're really good at but now the challenge is, how do we get all three mixed within that? How will we be able to get Demry his plays and Ty Johnson his plays without being able to just keep it all within our system but be creative as we continue to move forward, as well. You know, that's what the fun of year one, you know your team but you don't really know your team. You haven't had a ton of games and a ton of data where you figure out, okay, we're really good at this. We're rotating a lot of guys in. You know, our spring ball was very limited. We've had a lot of guys, you know, done for the season and we've had guys miss games, we've had guys just -- last week was Justus Harris' first game, so it's hard to see what everybody does really well and how it all meshes together. But you have to be really creative in terms of our strengths and weaknesses and make sure we're exploiting and promoting our strengths, and eliminating those weaknesses by being very creative but also very simple at the same time, because you've got very experienced backs and players that can handle a lot. But then you have very inexperienced quarterbacks who might not be able to handle as much, so it's that balance of both of doing everything you can to put them in the best position.
Q. [Indiscernible] is that getting the desired effect on the defense as you thought it would?
COACH FLECK: I think it does. Here's what it does, Chip, it's not a secret, so coaches do it all over the country but what it does is it promotes the ability to get your Jimmy on their Joe. Right? That's the guy to stop that guy, and if we feel our guy is better than that one guy to make that tackle, in space, then we're going to do it a lot more. It pulls another person out of the box so the inside zone and things like that open up. We've got a bunch of other things coming from that that we'll continue to evolve that type of plan and that's not exactly what we thought we'd have to do in spring ball. We didn't even really work on a lot of that in spring ball, that was the evolution of what type of team we started to become in training camp, what type of skill set we had on the outside, and so it kind of evolves and, you know -- but that's what you work on. So it kind of gets a safety in space with somebody else and gets one of our best players on one of their better tacklers and see if our guy can make him miss. So -- and then it creates a lot of movement in the backfield. It's as close to an option as you can get without being option, I guess, because it simplifies things.
Q. Did you do that at Western?
COACH FLECK: We did a lot of different stuff off that, yeah, we did that plus we did all -- our fourth year at Western Michigan, we were all over the place, there were all types of things going on. There was all types of movement and misdirections and bubbles and screens and it was all over the place but, again, we're going to do what this team is capable of doing at a high level where we can, you know, have the most success we possibly can have and then eliminate the amount of weaknesses we can have, which obviously leads into turnovers or incompletions or guys that are not comfortable, or sacks. We've got to eliminate negative plays. I mean, we're not deep enough or experienced enough to come back from second and 18s a lot, especially the defenses we're going to be playing in the Big 10.
Q. Any temptation to use all three running backs at once in the formation?
COACH FLECK: Yeah, it's not as easy as throwing them on the field and letting them do those because everyone's smart, too. It's not like Kobe McCrary is going to be, you know, catching eight go-routes as a wide receiver and getting off the line of scrimmage and working on a perfect tight break and driving down for a speed cut, so it becomes a little bit about, if you put one more on, who do you take off? We've experimented a little bit with it this week but, again, how does it all fit, how does it change the picture, you know, because we want our guys to know where their guys are going to be. Now, Iowa's going to be where they're going to be. They're very -- I can't even -- I got to be careful how I explain them. They're very set in their ways and they're very, very talented at it. It's very difficult to put a 12- to 14-play drive together and score four different times against Iowa. They've done what they've done for so many years. Like I said before, the biggest compliment I can give them about their culture, they've had two coaches in 40-some years and the head coach now worked for the head coach prior, so it's really one culture for almost a half a century, right, and we've had six head coaches in 11 years. Those are the things that -- and six different systems, and you can go on and on about that. We've got to bring the same system, start to form our identity that way as we continue to go in the future. So we got to give them a lot of credit at what they're doing.
Q. What does Adekunle Ayinde show you with his versatility?
COACH FLECK: I would like to be able to say that's been by his choice but it's not, it's our choice. We have no other choice, we have to put him all over the place. One thing I'll say, though, I think he's playing at a very high level. One thing I'll say about Kunle is he cares. I mean, he cares. He is a senior who cares, he's played ball for us. Talk about a walk-on and scholarships and things like that. I mean, Kunle is what Row The Boat culture is all about. He plays so hard. He's very self-less. To go from safety to corner and learn the techniques and do all those things and start the year as non-starter and now you're the guy, and that's just what I said to the team beginning of the year. I said, we're going to need everybody, and Kunle is a prime example of that. Does all the right things off the field. He's a wonderful student, a tremendous teammate to his teammates. He's on the leadership. People really respect him and I think he's stepped up in a big role for us and proud of his progress. I think if you talk to him, he wants to -- he's going to want to continue to see his progress continue to grow and change for the best, and that's what I want, I want him to get better, but thank goodness we have Kunle, as versatile as he is, and I thought he did a nice job stepping into that role.
Q. Three running backs that can play -- . Can they carry the ball ten or 11 times a game or do you think that's almost impossible, somebody would have to carry it 20 at one time?
COACH FLECK: No, I wouldn't like -- I mean, here's the one thing. When you have -- we've seen what happens when you carry it 25 times a game in this league, right? Rodney's been out, Shannon's been out, and if you only have one back you can count on, think of how many games -- we'd be on the next back or the third back by taking all those carries. We'd probably be on our fifth or sixth back by now so to be able to have that, the challenge -- and the one thing I love about them is they're selfless, so -- but Kobe earned more reps so that means those reps will be taken away a little bit from Rodney and Shannon, to be able to keep them healthy as we make this stretch in the next five games and that's what I want. I don't want to have to continue to have, Shannon's out for two weeks and Rodney is out for two weeks. Kobe's been able to provide that and we've got to be able to get Kobe more reps, and he'll have more reps this week.
Q. How has secondary as a whole has handled the injuries.
COACH FLECK: Well, I think they've handled it very well. You know, one thing I will say, I think Mo Linguist is one of the best defensive backs coaches -- I haven't been around a better defensive back coach in my career than Mo Linguist, I haven't. That's all due respect. Maybe Greg Schiano would be one that I would say would be someone who -- he was my mentor but, besides him, I think Mo Linguist is somebody I respect a lot. Unbelievable recruiter, unbelievable relationship-builder, and one thing I love about Mo is doesn't matter who's out there, he coaches them all. Like they're the All-American, like they're the five-star, like they're the All Big 10 player of the year, coaches them all that way. Justus Harris wouldn't be where Justus Harris is, he wouldn’t be ready to even play if it wasn't for Mo Linguist. He's so dedicated to coaching all of our players and does it with such energy and compassion and passion and purpose, he is just -- we're blessed to have him here, we are, at the University of Minnesota, we're blessed to have Coach Linguist, and I think all our DBs would say the same thing. He has a saying, "Because it's important." They all make fun of him. They talk about him all the time, they say, "Why, because it's important?" Everything is important to Mo Linguist and I think, when you look at our defensive backs, they're playing for him, and I've always said that if you can get players to play for their coaches, coaches to coach for their players, and you start to have that relationship where everybody's doing it for each other and not themselves, you have a team and that's the difference between a group and a team and we're meshing that all together. It's very difficult to do with how many people he's lost. We were thin to begin with, you know. Talk about what happened in January and when we first got here and the suspensions and that was mostly all the secondary that played last year. And now all of a sudden, you had Shenault down and you had Antoine Winfield, your best player on defense, down and you're thin to begin with as it is and you're starting to look down the depth chart saying, "Oh, my goodness." You start talking about Kunle. Kunle's played safety, he's played corner, and now he's the starter and all he's done has gotten better. When you have guys who haven't played a lot and they step into starting roles and you don't miss a beat -- now, you might get beat on some things or you might not -- or you might miss something because you don't have the experience yet, that's one thing. But when you watch how hard those guys are playing, they're playing for Mo, playing for each other, and that's a compliment to them.
Q. What have you seen from Thomas Barber from week one until now?
COACH FLECK: I think he's a completely different person, in a good way. I'm not saying he was bad before, he’s a phenomenal person, but I think he's a completely different person. He's willing to take the responsibility on his shoulders. I think in week one, week two, he wasn't. He was looking for somebody else to do that. I think he's starting to own the defense a little bit more. The more players we can get to own the defense, and I mean that in the best way, in that I don't want just one guy to own the defense. I want it to be Thomas Barber's defense eventually but then I want everybody else to say, "This is my defense, too." Year four at Western Michigan, we actually had leaders fighting with leaders to say, "No, I'm the alpha leader." It takes a long time to get to that point. We just need one alpha leader to step in, and I think he's starting to develop that. He's not there yet but he's starting to develop that, and I think he's starting to feel that in his role but, again, that's a lot of pressure and expectation for a first-year starter as a sophomore. But, again, that's the start of learning -- there's no greater time to learn about pressure and expectation than now.
Q. Do you feel you guys got better on the edge rushes as the Illinois game came along?
COACH FLECK: I did. I thought Carter Coughlin set the tone for us. I thought he really did. You know, Carter is really coming into his role out there. But again, you're only as good as your outside rushes as you are inside, and I think Steven Richardson is probably playing at the best level he's played at in a long time. He might not have the numbers but, again, everybody knows who Steven Richardson is now. I'm not saying they didn't know about him before but he had other people around him that had played a lot of football, right, that demanded a double team or a chip or a scrape. Maybe we don't have that yet but, again, so he's getting most of the double teams and he's still productive. He's still productive in creating single matchups on the outside, and we're starting to take advantage of those things, but that's because of a Steven Richardson or the guys inside, but Steven's really playing well.
Q. What do you do during practice? Do you go group to group? Is there an emphasis that you're always looking for, offense or defense? What do you try to get out of a practice personally?
COACH FLECK: I coach everybody. Coach everybody and coach everywhere. And that's one of my goals when I go out to coach, it's not just, hey, I'm going to be with the wide receivers. That's my specialty. The offense is what I've kind of known the best over the years and been with, but that allows me to be with the defense more because I can look from afar to see the offense but be with the defense. But every drill, I'm coaching everybody. I'm around making sure that I can do everything I can -- I was taught as a young coach, if I ever became a head football coach, everybody on your team deserves to be coached by the head coach every day. Now, think about how hard that is, Mike, in terms of 125 kids. It's my job to talk to everybody during practice at some point. And I have the energy to do it, and I don't have a checklist that I'm going like this with, so I'm not sure if I'm 100% every day but I'm pretty close. Everybody deserves it, and everybody wants to be coached until you get coached. This isn't just head coach coming over to shake your hand and just say, "Hi, wonderful job." We're coaching but it's -- I take a lot of pride in that. I think everybody deserves to see the head coach everywhere so that's kind of what I do. And then I'm coaching the coaches, but I don't coach the coaches on the field. I think a lot of coaches, you know, whether they're ripping a coach or whether they're ripping a coach in front of a player or whether they're, you know, coaching a coach to do something, I think that looks like an organization. What I do is I keep notes of practice, everything I want to talk -- our staff meeting is right after this meeting every day, every Tuesday, and I have a list of probably 50 notes from practice that I share with our staff of what I want changed or what I want to do or what drill I want ran or what I liked, what I didn't like, what we have to work as position groups, offense, defense, special teams. And those are notes for me to handle inside those doors with our coaches. But our job, when our coaches are out there, man, I want them coaching. I want them coaching their position. They're the head coach of their position so they should always have the respect and always have the eyes of the players and not have the coach butt in to do that. But I like coaching drills. I love to coach. Part about being the head coach at times is you're not the position coach anymore. That's the one thing I do miss since I've become a head coach, you're not the position coach anymore, and I'm not a micromanager so I'm not like, "Hey, move over, Matt Simon, I've got this." I would never embarrass him that way nor would I ever want to do that. That disables his ability to become the coach that he needs to be. Educate him in here, then allow him to go coach that, I think that's my job now. And I've had to learn that over the years.
Q. In your profession and how fluid it is and guys going and coming and getting fired, to have a coach of 20 years at the same spot, almost seems unheard of anymore.
COACH FLECK: It's unheard of but that's why they've had a lot of success over the years, and you can always count on Iowa always being in the mix. I know they're our rival but I respect people's coaching game. Remember, I'm a coach and I'm a fan of college football. I love education, I love teaching, I love business. I love to watch how successful companies make it work. If you're changing your CEO every two years, I don't know many businesses that are successful when they do that. I don't. Same thing in football. Everybody changing their head football coach because the magic formula didn't work every year, I don't understand that. What I -- you know, you look back to how things became traditional football, the Woody Hayes, the Bo Schembechlers, the Hayden Frys, they were there forever, you know, Phil Fulmer at Tennessee, there forever. In this day and age, it's hard to get a program to win to where the expectations of people from the outside are in two, three years, it's hard. But the investment to be able to continue to do that and understand what's going on inside the program and the cultural sustainability of everybody being on the same page, and always moving towards that goal, that's why Iowa has won -- had a ton of success, had some average years, continued to do that but stayed with the plan, and that's what you do, continue to stay with the plan, continue to do the best, keeping rowing the boat, and that's the message to the fans, keep rowing the boat, keep your oar in the water. Remember, I'm the same guy that went 1-11, you know, and the next year, somehow our staff got named Coach of the Year. We were the biggest schmucks in the world year one, and I've never really put a lot of value in what people think of me in terms of winning and losing, I want people to say he's making a difference. If people say he's not making a difference and he's a complete jerk to talk to, that would affect me but in terms of the wins, they'll come. I'm not worried about that, I'm worried about digging and building that culture that 20 years from now, Chip, if you're still doing what you're doing, I hope -- you should be. He's going to set the bar pretty high but you should be, and -- but if you're doing that, that's what Iowa has and that's special. I know they're our rival, I'm not supposed to say nice things about that, I don't know, I'm not into that, either. You give credit where credit is deserved and that's why they're able to have that. And that's -- when I go back to recruiting and I go back to legacy -- I mean, if you played at Iowa within the last 40 years, most of the time, those dads and moms are sending their kids to Iowa, no matter what. Why? Because their dad played for Hayden Fry. Or they played for -- their grandfather played for Hayden Fry and their dad played for Kirk Ferentz, so on, so forth, whatever it was. There's that legacy. Here, we have, "Well, I'm this guy's guy." "I played for this coach, I'm his guy." And, "I played for this coach and I was in that era," and it's almost like -- like this, instead of everybody coming together, and that's what I want to bring here for our alum, you know, and for the people in our past and present and then our future Gophers that we can create something for a long time. Again, I'm getting on my soap box and preaching again. I'll get all your tweets, "Stop talking," I get it, but that's our message and that's what our message will always be, and that's why I came here.
Q. Each of your three running backs, what individually do they bring to the team, just each of the three, Kobe, Shannon and Rodney?
COACH FLECK: Consistency, you know. As a whole. I think they're the solid rock and the solid foundation of our team, but I think individually, Rodney has incredible vision. That third and 5 run that he makes, I don't know if -- I haven't seen many backs I've ever coached that can make that run, that third and 5 that we go in to score, thank goodness, and makes an incredible run based on his vision. I think Kobe runs behind his pads really well. For a big guy, he's got really, really good feet and he finishes his runs. He had 43 yards after contact this past game, you know. So he understands that. Shannon I think does a really nice job of going from speed to power and he can go there quick. He's got a very, very quick acceleration, especially with the inside zone to hit that thing. This isn't, you know, a ton of power schemes with us, in terms of you got to be patient, patient, wait for the pull. The inside zone, you get that thing, there's that PFFFFT, he hit it. I think he does that really well, and he'll lower his shoulder and finish it. They're all doing a great job of finishing, they're all tough.
Q. You are going to have your guys participate in the first quarter wave at Iowa. Can you talk a little bit about that?
COACH FLECK: Yeah, the first quarter wave at Iowa, first and foremost, this is a credit to them. I am who I am, I'm going to say what I'm going to say, no matter what. I'll say this, I think that's my favorite tradition in college football. I know it's just started, that is my favorite, favorite one. For them to be able to do that, that's special. Those are moments and memories, fans, players, the children in that hospital are going to remember the rest of their lives, and some of those children in that hospital have a very, very short life left, and, you know, I really look up to Iowa to do that. I mean, that's something I would love to do if it hung over our stadium, that's -- that's how you make a difference. That's how -- that's why college football is really special, is for traditions like that. And, you know, we'll participate in that, as well, and we look forward to it. And, you know, hopefully that rivalry will be able to create something special for all the children in that hospital, and I know that -- you know, our players spend a lot of time at Masonic Children's Hospital every week, Wednesday or Thursday, and, you know, children are very important in our lives, and the Children's Hospital, no matter where we've been, has always been very important in our life as a Fleck family and always will be, so we're very honored to partake in that tradition and, like I said, that's my favorite and we've explained that to our kids, and we're really looking forward to doing that.
Paul: Thank you, Coach.
COACH FLECK: Row The Boat, Ski U Mah, Go Gophers. Thanks a lot.
COACH FLECK: First and foremost, welcome, everybody, appreciate all the attention you give our program. Thanks for being here on your busy schedules, means a lot. I want to start by wishing all of our Minnesota high school coaches and student athletes a ton of success as they start the playoffs tonight. Really looking forward to following all of you. Should be a really exciting playoff with a lot of elite teams this year and a lot of awesome matchups, so we're looking forward to that. Second, I want to thank Mortenson Construction. I got a chance to go through the Athletes Village yesterday and get the whole tour, and I hadn't had a tour for a while and, you know, I was -- last time I was in there, the sheetrock wasn't even up and it was just a lot of open spaces. It's starting to come together, and they don't get enough credit in terms of how hard they work. I think everybody just sees the progress, thinks it's beautiful, and the Athletes Village is a gamechanger and it's because of all those workers out there every single day, and just truly appreciate their elite work, and never goes unnoticed. So thank you so much for the commitment that you've made to our facility and to the University of Minnesota and our student athletes. And I know one day your work will be done here, you'll move on to another one, but the work you're doing is going to last a long time based on the results we get inside this program, on the field, off the field, and in recruiting. We're very happy to be 1-0 in our new season with the Illini. It was really good to win homecoming and for past, present and future Gophers. We were very excited for that, that it came out on the, you know, 24-17 victory in the scoreboard, so really happy about that. I'm sure everybody had a great night and enjoyed themselves but now we've got another challenge ahead of us. We get into rivalry week here but I'm sure you have a lot of questions and we're really excited about the opportunity we have. We're 0-0 the way we look at it, one-game seasons, and we have to be way better this week than we were last week and we have a lot of things to get better at. So, open it up for questions.
Q. P.J., what have you learned since you've been here from your fans and from your players about the Minnesota-Iowa rivalry?
COACH FLECK: Well, the great thing is, I might not have a lot of ties to the state of Minnesota in terms of where I was from and where I've coached, but I did recruit it in my first year at Northern Illinois -- but I grew up in Big 10 country in Chicago, I grew up in it. I got a chance to follow all the rivalries and I always thought that was really neat. I always used to play the video games, too, and NCAA, and you play for all the trophy games and you educate yourself that way. But when you actually start to think about the history, Floyd of Rosedale and 1935 and how it originated, and what it was made from and the Governors and the bets -- the bet they had, it's just very special. This is why you play in the Big 10 and this is why you coach in the Big 10. This is why you come to the University of Minnesota to play in all these historic rivalries. It's very important. It's the next game and I never want our players to have to play so much better in one game because it's this game and then slough off in another game because it isn't a rivalry. You have to be able to keep the balance throughout the season, of continue to change your best, continue to grow, continue to grow in all the fundamentals and details as a player, as a coach and evolving through our culture and through our systems, as well. But it's an honor. I'm really honored to be able to coach in this rivalry and represent our team to be able to represent the past, present and future Gopher teams. But it means a lot. It really does. This is a -- it really is a dream come true, to be honest with you, to be coaching in games like this, and it's going to be a heck of an environment at Kinnick Stadium, we know that, 5:30 kickoff. I don't know if you call that a night game or a mid-day game, I'm not sure what you call that with a 5:30 kick-off, but it will be dark soon enough, I know that.
Q. P.J., this team went from one of the most penalized teams in college football last year to one of the least penalized this year --
COACH FLECK: You're talking about our team?
Q. Yes, your team. Is there are more punishment for penalties in practice or how did you clean that up?
COACH FLECK: Well, punishment is not the word I would use. Discipline, I would use, absolutely. I think we're a very disciplined football team, I think we're a very disciplined culture. You're going to be held accountable for your actions in a good way and in a bad way, right. I mean, if you do something great and get into one of your majors, we celebrate that in our team meeting. Jaylen Waters, one of our linebackers, just got into his business marketing degree, got into that school, so we celebrated that as a football team today. So all the accomplishments we're going to continue to celebrate, hold them accountable for our GPA and our grade point average to continue to go up. Their life off the field continues to get better. We'll hold them accountable to doing all those things, that plus-three mentality in all four areas but, also, when you look at on-the-field discipline, I think there's so many examples throughout the country every week that we show our players, right, every Tuesday or every Sunday, of whether it's the NFL. or whether it's college football, of people not being disciplined and how it cost them. It's not just, "Don't do this." That's not what this program is about, not a bunch of don'ts, don'ts, don'ts, don'ts. It's here's why we educate to do this instead of this, and then we show them reasons and back that up with -- there is a lot of things that you saw with middle fingers here and middle fingers there during the game and we do everything we can to teach the players don't let the circumstance dictate your behavior. It's a very emotional game but you have to be able to direct your energy towards the things that are really important, and playing the game the right way, focusing on your teammates, celebrating with your teammates, not letting the outside noise affect you, but being strong enough to hold on to the core values of the culture and continue to be an example of that. So we take pride in that, you know. You know, I think we're playing on the edge, you know, we're playing hungry, playing disciplined. And I'm proud of that.
Q. How about Demry Croft, how do you make sure he grows every week, not put too much on his plate, give him enough that he can grow in confidence?
COACH FLECK: Yeah, Mike, I think that was my fault last week. You know, I think -- maybe I took for granted the 10 minutes that he played against Michigan State, like we all did. We all went in there, "Holy cow," and I think every single one of you said, "Hey, Demry should be starting next week." I think everybody kind of had that type of thought. And maybe I -- again, it falls back on me, everything in this program falls back on me, and when a kid doesn't have the success in his first true start, you know, I take that personally and I've got to be better at getting him prepared. We might have to do some other things and keep a tighter game plan, even when we might have thought it was tight, maybe become even a little bit tighter of what he can do, what he's not able to do yet, what he's comfortable with. I guess it's not really what he can and can't do, he can do a lot, he's very talented, but what is he comfortable doing in terms of his first start, first year playing, and having the ability to be the guy. So I thought we'd done a tremendous job of that this week. Coach Ciarrocca, who's just every week continues to make better game plans and better game plans, based on the strength of our football team. Year one at Western Michigan, we were able to do certain things and we were able to do -- weren't able to do certain things, based on the type of team you have. By year four, we were doing everything we'd ever dreamed of wanting to do with our system, so it comes in stages and really depends on the development of your quarterback, and, you know, we have had, now, two quarterbacks play but, again, you just don't give up on somebody because they made a few mistakes. Those mistakes go on me. I've got to be better at putting them in better situations and more successful situations as a coach, and continue to develop him every day and promoting success, getting him to do successful things and eliminating those weaknesses, once he shows maybe that's not what he's strong at right now. Because there's, you know, not a lot of time to get that better. There's not an off-season tomorrow, we still got games to play, so we've got to be able to take that and run with it.
Q. Some news today about a former commit to the Gophers in 2016 who passed way who has ties to a bunch of players in that class. Do you know of that, and do you plan to talk to the team about it or help them out in any way?
COACH FLECK: Oh, absolutely. You know, what we'll do is, I'm going to gather more information about it and, absolutely, you know -- I mean, one thing about this is any time you lose a student athlete, at some point, it's very tragic and affects people in different ways. You know, whether it's John Celestin's father or Rey Rey's cousin or Rey Rey's best friend or Chris Bell's best friend, who were all killed, you know, and I could go on. All of our players have something that affects them that way. But when it's in-house, at some point, whether I was here or not here, you know, you have to make sure that you -- you are very compassionate toward all their needs and we'll definitely be on that. As I continue to gain more information on it -- just like you, it's pretty new so I want to be able to gain all the information I can on that. But I will say this, our thoughts, prayers, hearts go out to the families, and, again, we'll talk a little bit more about that as I gather more information but it's what I know at this time.
Q. Asked you about the running back rotation after the game. How do you balance -- okay, you got certain plays that you want to get the ball to Rodney or Shannon versus just kind of the flow of the game, a guy gets hot, you stick with him. How do you sort of balance and walk that line?
COACH FLECK: Well, I'll be honest with you, I'm not sure that -- you know, I think we have three really talented backs and I'm not sure which one gets hotter and which one gets colder. I think they all play really well and I think that it's up for us as a coaching staff to make sure that what their true strengths are and what plays they're really good at, that it just becomes second nature for them. They rarely struggle in the plays that they're really good at but now the challenge is, how do we get all three mixed within that? How will we be able to get Demry his plays and Ty Johnson his plays without being able to just keep it all within our system but be creative as we continue to move forward, as well. You know, that's what the fun of year one, you know your team but you don't really know your team. You haven't had a ton of games and a ton of data where you figure out, okay, we're really good at this. We're rotating a lot of guys in. You know, our spring ball was very limited. We've had a lot of guys, you know, done for the season and we've had guys miss games, we've had guys just -- last week was Justus Harris' first game, so it's hard to see what everybody does really well and how it all meshes together. But you have to be really creative in terms of our strengths and weaknesses and make sure we're exploiting and promoting our strengths, and eliminating those weaknesses by being very creative but also very simple at the same time, because you've got very experienced backs and players that can handle a lot. But then you have very inexperienced quarterbacks who might not be able to handle as much, so it's that balance of both of doing everything you can to put them in the best position.
Q. [Indiscernible] is that getting the desired effect on the defense as you thought it would?
COACH FLECK: I think it does. Here's what it does, Chip, it's not a secret, so coaches do it all over the country but what it does is it promotes the ability to get your Jimmy on their Joe. Right? That's the guy to stop that guy, and if we feel our guy is better than that one guy to make that tackle, in space, then we're going to do it a lot more. It pulls another person out of the box so the inside zone and things like that open up. We've got a bunch of other things coming from that that we'll continue to evolve that type of plan and that's not exactly what we thought we'd have to do in spring ball. We didn't even really work on a lot of that in spring ball, that was the evolution of what type of team we started to become in training camp, what type of skill set we had on the outside, and so it kind of evolves and, you know -- but that's what you work on. So it kind of gets a safety in space with somebody else and gets one of our best players on one of their better tacklers and see if our guy can make him miss. So -- and then it creates a lot of movement in the backfield. It's as close to an option as you can get without being option, I guess, because it simplifies things.
Q. Did you do that at Western?
COACH FLECK: We did a lot of different stuff off that, yeah, we did that plus we did all -- our fourth year at Western Michigan, we were all over the place, there were all types of things going on. There was all types of movement and misdirections and bubbles and screens and it was all over the place but, again, we're going to do what this team is capable of doing at a high level where we can, you know, have the most success we possibly can have and then eliminate the amount of weaknesses we can have, which obviously leads into turnovers or incompletions or guys that are not comfortable, or sacks. We've got to eliminate negative plays. I mean, we're not deep enough or experienced enough to come back from second and 18s a lot, especially the defenses we're going to be playing in the Big 10.
Q. Any temptation to use all three running backs at once in the formation?
COACH FLECK: Yeah, it's not as easy as throwing them on the field and letting them do those because everyone's smart, too. It's not like Kobe McCrary is going to be, you know, catching eight go-routes as a wide receiver and getting off the line of scrimmage and working on a perfect tight break and driving down for a speed cut, so it becomes a little bit about, if you put one more on, who do you take off? We've experimented a little bit with it this week but, again, how does it all fit, how does it change the picture, you know, because we want our guys to know where their guys are going to be. Now, Iowa's going to be where they're going to be. They're very -- I can't even -- I got to be careful how I explain them. They're very set in their ways and they're very, very talented at it. It's very difficult to put a 12- to 14-play drive together and score four different times against Iowa. They've done what they've done for so many years. Like I said before, the biggest compliment I can give them about their culture, they've had two coaches in 40-some years and the head coach now worked for the head coach prior, so it's really one culture for almost a half a century, right, and we've had six head coaches in 11 years. Those are the things that -- and six different systems, and you can go on and on about that. We've got to bring the same system, start to form our identity that way as we continue to go in the future. So we got to give them a lot of credit at what they're doing.
Q. What does Adekunle Ayinde show you with his versatility?
COACH FLECK: I would like to be able to say that's been by his choice but it's not, it's our choice. We have no other choice, we have to put him all over the place. One thing I'll say, though, I think he's playing at a very high level. One thing I'll say about Kunle is he cares. I mean, he cares. He is a senior who cares, he's played ball for us. Talk about a walk-on and scholarships and things like that. I mean, Kunle is what Row The Boat culture is all about. He plays so hard. He's very self-less. To go from safety to corner and learn the techniques and do all those things and start the year as non-starter and now you're the guy, and that's just what I said to the team beginning of the year. I said, we're going to need everybody, and Kunle is a prime example of that. Does all the right things off the field. He's a wonderful student, a tremendous teammate to his teammates. He's on the leadership. People really respect him and I think he's stepped up in a big role for us and proud of his progress. I think if you talk to him, he wants to -- he's going to want to continue to see his progress continue to grow and change for the best, and that's what I want, I want him to get better, but thank goodness we have Kunle, as versatile as he is, and I thought he did a nice job stepping into that role.
Q. Three running backs that can play -- . Can they carry the ball ten or 11 times a game or do you think that's almost impossible, somebody would have to carry it 20 at one time?
COACH FLECK: No, I wouldn't like -- I mean, here's the one thing. When you have -- we've seen what happens when you carry it 25 times a game in this league, right? Rodney's been out, Shannon's been out, and if you only have one back you can count on, think of how many games -- we'd be on the next back or the third back by taking all those carries. We'd probably be on our fifth or sixth back by now so to be able to have that, the challenge -- and the one thing I love about them is they're selfless, so -- but Kobe earned more reps so that means those reps will be taken away a little bit from Rodney and Shannon, to be able to keep them healthy as we make this stretch in the next five games and that's what I want. I don't want to have to continue to have, Shannon's out for two weeks and Rodney is out for two weeks. Kobe's been able to provide that and we've got to be able to get Kobe more reps, and he'll have more reps this week.
Q. How has secondary as a whole has handled the injuries.
COACH FLECK: Well, I think they've handled it very well. You know, one thing I will say, I think Mo Linguist is one of the best defensive backs coaches -- I haven't been around a better defensive back coach in my career than Mo Linguist, I haven't. That's all due respect. Maybe Greg Schiano would be one that I would say would be someone who -- he was my mentor but, besides him, I think Mo Linguist is somebody I respect a lot. Unbelievable recruiter, unbelievable relationship-builder, and one thing I love about Mo is doesn't matter who's out there, he coaches them all. Like they're the All-American, like they're the five-star, like they're the All Big 10 player of the year, coaches them all that way. Justus Harris wouldn't be where Justus Harris is, he wouldn’t be ready to even play if it wasn't for Mo Linguist. He's so dedicated to coaching all of our players and does it with such energy and compassion and passion and purpose, he is just -- we're blessed to have him here, we are, at the University of Minnesota, we're blessed to have Coach Linguist, and I think all our DBs would say the same thing. He has a saying, "Because it's important." They all make fun of him. They talk about him all the time, they say, "Why, because it's important?" Everything is important to Mo Linguist and I think, when you look at our defensive backs, they're playing for him, and I've always said that if you can get players to play for their coaches, coaches to coach for their players, and you start to have that relationship where everybody's doing it for each other and not themselves, you have a team and that's the difference between a group and a team and we're meshing that all together. It's very difficult to do with how many people he's lost. We were thin to begin with, you know. Talk about what happened in January and when we first got here and the suspensions and that was mostly all the secondary that played last year. And now all of a sudden, you had Shenault down and you had Antoine Winfield, your best player on defense, down and you're thin to begin with as it is and you're starting to look down the depth chart saying, "Oh, my goodness." You start talking about Kunle. Kunle's played safety, he's played corner, and now he's the starter and all he's done has gotten better. When you have guys who haven't played a lot and they step into starting roles and you don't miss a beat -- now, you might get beat on some things or you might not -- or you might miss something because you don't have the experience yet, that's one thing. But when you watch how hard those guys are playing, they're playing for Mo, playing for each other, and that's a compliment to them.
Q. What have you seen from Thomas Barber from week one until now?
COACH FLECK: I think he's a completely different person, in a good way. I'm not saying he was bad before, he’s a phenomenal person, but I think he's a completely different person. He's willing to take the responsibility on his shoulders. I think in week one, week two, he wasn't. He was looking for somebody else to do that. I think he's starting to own the defense a little bit more. The more players we can get to own the defense, and I mean that in the best way, in that I don't want just one guy to own the defense. I want it to be Thomas Barber's defense eventually but then I want everybody else to say, "This is my defense, too." Year four at Western Michigan, we actually had leaders fighting with leaders to say, "No, I'm the alpha leader." It takes a long time to get to that point. We just need one alpha leader to step in, and I think he's starting to develop that. He's not there yet but he's starting to develop that, and I think he's starting to feel that in his role but, again, that's a lot of pressure and expectation for a first-year starter as a sophomore. But, again, that's the start of learning -- there's no greater time to learn about pressure and expectation than now.
Q. Do you feel you guys got better on the edge rushes as the Illinois game came along?
COACH FLECK: I did. I thought Carter Coughlin set the tone for us. I thought he really did. You know, Carter is really coming into his role out there. But again, you're only as good as your outside rushes as you are inside, and I think Steven Richardson is probably playing at the best level he's played at in a long time. He might not have the numbers but, again, everybody knows who Steven Richardson is now. I'm not saying they didn't know about him before but he had other people around him that had played a lot of football, right, that demanded a double team or a chip or a scrape. Maybe we don't have that yet but, again, so he's getting most of the double teams and he's still productive. He's still productive in creating single matchups on the outside, and we're starting to take advantage of those things, but that's because of a Steven Richardson or the guys inside, but Steven's really playing well.
Q. What do you do during practice? Do you go group to group? Is there an emphasis that you're always looking for, offense or defense? What do you try to get out of a practice personally?
COACH FLECK: I coach everybody. Coach everybody and coach everywhere. And that's one of my goals when I go out to coach, it's not just, hey, I'm going to be with the wide receivers. That's my specialty. The offense is what I've kind of known the best over the years and been with, but that allows me to be with the defense more because I can look from afar to see the offense but be with the defense. But every drill, I'm coaching everybody. I'm around making sure that I can do everything I can -- I was taught as a young coach, if I ever became a head football coach, everybody on your team deserves to be coached by the head coach every day. Now, think about how hard that is, Mike, in terms of 125 kids. It's my job to talk to everybody during practice at some point. And I have the energy to do it, and I don't have a checklist that I'm going like this with, so I'm not sure if I'm 100% every day but I'm pretty close. Everybody deserves it, and everybody wants to be coached until you get coached. This isn't just head coach coming over to shake your hand and just say, "Hi, wonderful job." We're coaching but it's -- I take a lot of pride in that. I think everybody deserves to see the head coach everywhere so that's kind of what I do. And then I'm coaching the coaches, but I don't coach the coaches on the field. I think a lot of coaches, you know, whether they're ripping a coach or whether they're ripping a coach in front of a player or whether they're, you know, coaching a coach to do something, I think that looks like an organization. What I do is I keep notes of practice, everything I want to talk -- our staff meeting is right after this meeting every day, every Tuesday, and I have a list of probably 50 notes from practice that I share with our staff of what I want changed or what I want to do or what drill I want ran or what I liked, what I didn't like, what we have to work as position groups, offense, defense, special teams. And those are notes for me to handle inside those doors with our coaches. But our job, when our coaches are out there, man, I want them coaching. I want them coaching their position. They're the head coach of their position so they should always have the respect and always have the eyes of the players and not have the coach butt in to do that. But I like coaching drills. I love to coach. Part about being the head coach at times is you're not the position coach anymore. That's the one thing I do miss since I've become a head coach, you're not the position coach anymore, and I'm not a micromanager so I'm not like, "Hey, move over, Matt Simon, I've got this." I would never embarrass him that way nor would I ever want to do that. That disables his ability to become the coach that he needs to be. Educate him in here, then allow him to go coach that, I think that's my job now. And I've had to learn that over the years.
Q. In your profession and how fluid it is and guys going and coming and getting fired, to have a coach of 20 years at the same spot, almost seems unheard of anymore.
COACH FLECK: It's unheard of but that's why they've had a lot of success over the years, and you can always count on Iowa always being in the mix. I know they're our rival but I respect people's coaching game. Remember, I'm a coach and I'm a fan of college football. I love education, I love teaching, I love business. I love to watch how successful companies make it work. If you're changing your CEO every two years, I don't know many businesses that are successful when they do that. I don't. Same thing in football. Everybody changing their head football coach because the magic formula didn't work every year, I don't understand that. What I -- you know, you look back to how things became traditional football, the Woody Hayes, the Bo Schembechlers, the Hayden Frys, they were there forever, you know, Phil Fulmer at Tennessee, there forever. In this day and age, it's hard to get a program to win to where the expectations of people from the outside are in two, three years, it's hard. But the investment to be able to continue to do that and understand what's going on inside the program and the cultural sustainability of everybody being on the same page, and always moving towards that goal, that's why Iowa has won -- had a ton of success, had some average years, continued to do that but stayed with the plan, and that's what you do, continue to stay with the plan, continue to do the best, keeping rowing the boat, and that's the message to the fans, keep rowing the boat, keep your oar in the water. Remember, I'm the same guy that went 1-11, you know, and the next year, somehow our staff got named Coach of the Year. We were the biggest schmucks in the world year one, and I've never really put a lot of value in what people think of me in terms of winning and losing, I want people to say he's making a difference. If people say he's not making a difference and he's a complete jerk to talk to, that would affect me but in terms of the wins, they'll come. I'm not worried about that, I'm worried about digging and building that culture that 20 years from now, Chip, if you're still doing what you're doing, I hope -- you should be. He's going to set the bar pretty high but you should be, and -- but if you're doing that, that's what Iowa has and that's special. I know they're our rival, I'm not supposed to say nice things about that, I don't know, I'm not into that, either. You give credit where credit is deserved and that's why they're able to have that. And that's -- when I go back to recruiting and I go back to legacy -- I mean, if you played at Iowa within the last 40 years, most of the time, those dads and moms are sending their kids to Iowa, no matter what. Why? Because their dad played for Hayden Fry. Or they played for -- their grandfather played for Hayden Fry and their dad played for Kirk Ferentz, so on, so forth, whatever it was. There's that legacy. Here, we have, "Well, I'm this guy's guy." "I played for this coach, I'm his guy." And, "I played for this coach and I was in that era," and it's almost like -- like this, instead of everybody coming together, and that's what I want to bring here for our alum, you know, and for the people in our past and present and then our future Gophers that we can create something for a long time. Again, I'm getting on my soap box and preaching again. I'll get all your tweets, "Stop talking," I get it, but that's our message and that's what our message will always be, and that's why I came here.
Q. Each of your three running backs, what individually do they bring to the team, just each of the three, Kobe, Shannon and Rodney?
COACH FLECK: Consistency, you know. As a whole. I think they're the solid rock and the solid foundation of our team, but I think individually, Rodney has incredible vision. That third and 5 run that he makes, I don't know if -- I haven't seen many backs I've ever coached that can make that run, that third and 5 that we go in to score, thank goodness, and makes an incredible run based on his vision. I think Kobe runs behind his pads really well. For a big guy, he's got really, really good feet and he finishes his runs. He had 43 yards after contact this past game, you know. So he understands that. Shannon I think does a really nice job of going from speed to power and he can go there quick. He's got a very, very quick acceleration, especially with the inside zone to hit that thing. This isn't, you know, a ton of power schemes with us, in terms of you got to be patient, patient, wait for the pull. The inside zone, you get that thing, there's that PFFFFT, he hit it. I think he does that really well, and he'll lower his shoulder and finish it. They're all doing a great job of finishing, they're all tough.
Q. You are going to have your guys participate in the first quarter wave at Iowa. Can you talk a little bit about that?
COACH FLECK: Yeah, the first quarter wave at Iowa, first and foremost, this is a credit to them. I am who I am, I'm going to say what I'm going to say, no matter what. I'll say this, I think that's my favorite tradition in college football. I know it's just started, that is my favorite, favorite one. For them to be able to do that, that's special. Those are moments and memories, fans, players, the children in that hospital are going to remember the rest of their lives, and some of those children in that hospital have a very, very short life left, and, you know, I really look up to Iowa to do that. I mean, that's something I would love to do if it hung over our stadium, that's -- that's how you make a difference. That's how -- that's why college football is really special, is for traditions like that. And, you know, we'll participate in that, as well, and we look forward to it. And, you know, hopefully that rivalry will be able to create something special for all the children in that hospital, and I know that -- you know, our players spend a lot of time at Masonic Children's Hospital every week, Wednesday or Thursday, and, you know, children are very important in our lives, and the Children's Hospital, no matter where we've been, has always been very important in our life as a Fleck family and always will be, so we're very honored to partake in that tradition and, like I said, that's my favorite and we've explained that to our kids, and we're really looking forward to doing that.
Paul: Thank you, Coach.
COACH FLECK: Row The Boat, Ski U Mah, Go Gophers. Thanks a lot.
