Minnesota Gopher Football: Quotes from Minnesota head football coach PJ Fleck as he previews the opening of spring football for 2024.
OPENING STATEMENT
Minnesota head coach PJ Fleck: “Before I get going, I just want to extend a warm welcome to our new president who will be here in July, Dr. Rebecca Cunningham. I’m really looking forward to meeting her and getting to know her. I look forward to working alongside her as well. So just want to extend a very warm welcome.
I’m really excited for spring ball. Obviously 2024 is upon us. I love what our players have done in January and February. We’ll talk about that with astronomical numbers in the weight room on the field. And now we got to put it together with football. So that’s gonna be the exciting part.
Just want to extend our congratulations and also all the best moving forward with all of our players who are in the NFL Draft here coming up in April. They just had their pro day, and all 32 NFL showed up, so it was really good to have everybody here. It’s fun to watch as a coach. You watch a player come in say they want to do something on the field and off the field and then especially on the field, go accomplish it, and those dreams comes full circle. So just want to extend congratulations to all them as well.”
CAN YOU TALK US THROUGH THE UCLA INTEREST IN YOU?
Minnesota head coach PJ Fleck: “Well, I just love being in Minnesota. I don’t know if there’s much to say after that. I just love being here.
I’ve told you that before. We built a life here, not just make a living being a football coach. We’re embedded in the community. We love this place, the city. We love the University. It’s been really good to us.
I think cultural sustainability is really important for success, especially in 2024 and the way college football is changing. I think it’s really important for the development of programs and success of programs. And yeah, just love being at Minnesota.”
WHAT WAS IT ABOUT COREY HETHERMAN THAT MADE YOU BELIEVE HE’S THE BEST PERSON TO LEAD YOUR DEFENSE?
Minnesota head coach PJ Fleck: “I think you just start with the type of person he is. He’s a man of character. He and his wife are starting their own family here in the next month, or somewhere around there. We’re excited for them.
But it’s the consistency of the system. The familiarity with the system. He’s really intelligent. I talked to so many people around the profession and they talked about how smart he is, how engaged he is, and he’s a football guy. Players love to play for him. It all kept coming back to intelligent and smart. And familiarity with what we do and how we do it.
And I think every coordinator is going to come in here and make it their own. So there’s going to be pieces of it that are different, but we do believe in what we believe in here defensively. And Corey is going to be an extension of that and he’s going to make it his own.
I’m really excited about our defensive staff where we are with that development they’ve shown and the connection they shown as a defensive staff. I mean really, the transition was very smooth, and that’s a credit to all those guys on defense including Corey because Corey didn’t bring anybody else with him. Sometimes I think a coordinator is a little hesitant to do that. But the transition has been so good. And you gotta give him a lot of credit for that. And we’re excited about that. He’s been a coordinator at multiple stops before and he had a ton of success. And we look forward to doing him doing that here as well.”
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE CORE PHILOSOPHIES THAT YOU AND BOB LIGASHESKY HAVE FOR THE SPECIAL TEAMS?
Minnesota head coach PJ Fleck: “This is the first time we’ve actually had to change special teams in my 12 years really of being a head football coach.
Bob has a track record of having success everywhere. He’s been in the NFL and College, and has a ton of experience. He’s done a lot of things a lot of different ways. And I think that’s what I was looking for in the hire with Bob.
Bob and I work together with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. His energy is incredible. It’s infectious. I’m not going to tell you his age but he’s older than me and he runs every single morning. We all have our own unique family lives and we make things work and he has one. I don’t think there’s a better man in the coaching profession than him. We used to go to dinner every Saturday night together in the NFL stops and that’s how we got to know each other.
We really just stayed in contact over the years. I have a ton of respect for what he does and how he does it. But again, he’s open to a lot of different things. But also, we get to be able to create things maybe we haven’t created here and emphasize things we haven’t emphasized because of that change and his open mindedness and his experience that he brings to the Gopher family.”
WHAT HAS MAX BROSMER SHOWN YOU SINCE HE’S BEEN ON CAMPUS?
Minnesota head coach PJ Fleck: “Well first of all, I think you start with the intangibles. They’re through the roof. If you look at the the quarterbacks we’ve had a lot of success with, whether Western Michigan or Minnesota, the intangibles go through the roof. And that’s the first thing that you see when you meet him. I think any successful quarterback has to have that piece.
It can’t be all of it because you got to have some skill and some talent and all that other stuff, but the intangibles, you feel like he’s already been here for 30 years. I’ve never seen a person walk into a situation may be probably more uncomfortable of a situation because you’re the new guy and connect as many people as quickly as he has.
You’re talking about a guy who most people spring break here at Panama City or Miami or all these things. Nope, he took a bunch of players back with him and they worked out during spring break. That’s leadership and he’s on a mission. He knows what he wants. Him even coming here getting all of his goals and objectives of what he wanted out of looking for a program. I think this place fit. Not just Minnesota, but our coaching staff and our culture and the situation he was walking into.
We talked about how we needed a quarterback to walk in here and connect the entire football team. And that was going to be a tall task for anybody. But you can tell in two and a half short months. This team is completely connected to him, has leaned on him and has looked to him for guidance. And that’s a credit to our players, but also a credit to him that he’s been able to do that in such a short amount of time. And it’s real, it’s authentic. He’s a special young man. And we look forward to him actually throwing some footballs here coming up…because this isn’t like having a freshman come in here that’s really talented.
He has all the experience that you want. That doesn’t promise you anything, but it gives you a better chance. And his work ethic is through the roof and has really has taken this team probably farther quicker than maybe expected.”
GIVEN WHAT YOU WERE ABLE TO DO WITH RETAINING STARTERS FROM THE TRANSFER PORTAL, WHAT DOES THAT SHOW ABOUT WHAT YOU WERE ABLE TO DO?
Minnesota head coach PJ Fleck: “I think everybody has their own philosophy in how you’re building programs right now. Some things that are in your control and some things that are out of your control, right? I said the beginning you have to adapt. If you don’t adapt, you’re gonna die on the vine.
I’m not saying we’ve made wholesale changes in what we believe because we haven’t. We’ve adapted. We don’t change our core philosophy in what we believe or how we build and connect teams. But when you look back at it, I think it’s 15 or 16 starters are back and we lost one starter. But other than that, 15 of them decided to stay.
I’m sure they could all make more money. I don’t think that’s a secret. But I am really, really thankful and proud of Dinkytown Athletes, our fans, our administration of really investing into our players.
Is there always going to be a bigger house? Yes.
Is there always somebody who is gonna make more money? Yes.
Always gonna be a faster car? Yes.
Is there always going to be that? Absolutely.
But I think with what we do and how we do it, it fits our culture. And what we do within our program of connecting a football team. Every single scholarship athlete makes NIL money and I’m a firm believer in connecting the entire football team.
Now like anything, people have abilities to make more money, I’m sure. But it’s one of those things that we take a lot of pride in with connecting our team. I’m proud of the people who put the work forward every single day to go out raise money for our student athletes and I give our student athletes a lot of credit. There’s a lot of choices out there. There’s a lot of things to value. I’m not saying we’re perfect and I’m not saying it’s the only way to do something. But I do think the majority that people here, not that money is not important. It’s a tool, but that’s not the number one thing they value. It’s a tool for them to be able to continue to do more of what they do.
And a lot of our guys give their money away and can connect people with it, which is what you want on the football team. So I think it says a lot about the cultural sustainability, the familiarity with the administration, Dinkytown Athletes, our players their commitment to each other and their maturity.”
WILL THERE BE ANY SITUATIONS IN WHICH MAX BROSMER OR DARIUS TAYLOR TAKE HITS?
Minnesota head coach PJ Fleck: “We’re going to be smart with our players. I think that there’s guys who have played a ton of football for us, but we’re gonna play football.
Are we going to sit back there and go live on the quarterback? No. He’s played enough football. I could watch the film of what he looks like after he gets tackled at New Hampshire. I can find that out. But we’re gonna do what we normally do. We never really go live on the quarterback all the time. We’ve done that when I haven’t known what the quarterbacks can do. And then we’ve done that a little bit.
In terms of Darius, I think we have a pretty deep running back room, which we spent a lot of time in the offseason developing. Whether it’s by young players or transfers or guys that we’re continually developing on a daily basis. But we’re gonna play football, and that’s the thing. There’s the NCAA limits on how much you can do and how many times you can hit. I think we’re always under those numbers.
You get 15 practices and we’re usually not even at 15 practices by the time you get done with spring anyway. We’re going to do what this team needs for us to be able to have success in the fall because right now you’re setting up your your position to win the job in fall camp. There are no jobs that are won in the spring. I tell our team that all the time. But you set yourself up now to put yourself in position to be able to win a job in trading camp.”
WHAT WENT INTO THE DECISION TO NOT HAVE A PUBLIC SPRING GAME THIS YEAR?
Minnesota head coach PJ Fleck: “A lot of things. Take your pick.
First of all over the last few years, I don’t think we’ve had a normal spring game where we announced it and it’s gonna happen on this time of day since 2017. I think that was the last time, and we’re talking about seven years ago. But there’s a lot of factors. Whether that was COVID or whether that was snow or something like that that moved the game. So that was that was one factor.
Two, I want to keep things inside the best I possibly can keep things inside. With the way college football is changing, we’re gonna have plenty of scrimmages and what we’re allowed to do inside our walls and then being able to have our fans be able to understand that the changing of college football. The changing of college athletics.
I think we have a Dinkytown Athletes practice that will be open to members, which I want our fans and urge our fans to be a part of Dinkytown Athletes. It’s going to give you a chance to be part of more things that we do as college football changes. We have to continue to adapt as a University as well to fit that change. And just like some of you have exclusive members and you have different things. We want to be able to urge and and create more people being a part of Dinkytown Athletes as best we possibly can.
And then also open practice for our fans as well. So there was a lot of different factors that went into it. But again, it was strictly to benefit our football program, period. This wasn’t some type of selfish decision on some other end. This is looking at all the things we’ve gone through the last seven years. What’s best for this football team with the ever changing landscape of college football, and I just felt like taking that game away for right now is probably now the best thing for our football team.”
DO YOU HAVE ANY THOUGHTS ON THE RECRUITING CALENDAR CHANGES WITH SIGNING DAY MOVING UP? HOW DO YOU THINK IT IMPACTS YOUR PROGRAM?
Minnesota head coach PJ Fleck: “I was definitely for it and open to it.
I think when you looked at the schedule of where we were in the recruiting schedule, it just didn’t make a lot of sense of where the things were. Every issue is changing in college football. I think it makes more sense now which is good. But we’re all in favor of it for it. We’ll adapt accordingly.”
IS THERE A SLOGAN OR CATCHPHRASE THIS SPRING ON WHAT YOU FEEL IS IMPORTANT FOR THIS 2024 TEAM?
Minnesota head coach PJ Fleck: “You’ll be around. You’ll see certain things. I’m sure you’ll ask me some questions.
But I just kind of hit it. We’ve talked competition since day one with this football team. We’ve talked about being a really smart football team in situational football. That smart word is going to be really important as we continue to build our offense, defense and special teams. And then the connection of this football team.
To answer your question, yes. But I’m sure that’s for another day. We’ll spend those days talking about those things.”
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