LOL @ Minnesota Here

[PnkPanther]

Especially when you consider that top coaching candidates aren't attracted to the position.

Depends on how you define "top"

PJ was a popular commodity when MN hired him, in fact many said no way PJ would take the MN job

The MN job is better than some give it credit, in the B1G, in the weaker of two conferences, pays well

But we're not going to lure top coach of current top 25 team away

 

[fredsdeadfriend]

I think the oars broke on PJ's rowboat.

that being said, I like the guy. Like his attitude and straight forward no bullshit way.

I was really hoping that he could turn Minny around a little and get them to the next tier football level. but I don't know. BGSU? Homecoming? ouch.

to find the bright side, it wasn't as bad as losing to Appy St...........

I agree with PnkPanther on this one, I don't think it's as bad as you are making it out to be. Yes Colorado is not very good, but no matter the Gophers looked much better in that game, and even the game vs tOSU they looked better. The Miami of Ohio game was like the BG one, and alot like the 3 ooc games the Gophers barely won back in 2019, PJ kept the game plans very conservative/vanilla and almost lost all 3 of those games, and then looked better once conf play started. Same thing seems to be the case this year, cept he lost one of them. Some times you take risks, over confident that you will figure out a way to win the game in the end, but this time too many things went wrong and too many players blew plays all in the same game. Maybe/hopefully they got it all out of their system?! If they figure things out and look as good as they did for 3 quarters vs OSU and the entire Colorado game, they could get to the Iowa matchup with a shot at winning the Div Title with a win vs Iowa? Then we'll look back at this BG loss as a glitch and not a sign of the oars being broke and PJ on the way to being fired or something like that.

 

[fredsdeadfriend]

Especially when you consider that top coaching candidates aren't attracted to the position.

That's not true. It may have been true back when we played in a crappy dome and/or when the Admin didn't pay it's coaches or assts as much as other B1G schools did, and/or back when our facilities were among the worst and least funded in the conf, and back when the thinking was that maybe you couldn't win at Minnesota?

But none of that is true anymore.

Prior to Fleck coming, UMn built a new outdoor stadium. The hiring of Fleck showed they were willing to pay good money for a coach and were willing to upgrade the Asst coaches pay as well. Then soon after he was hired, the New Athletes Village/Practice Facility was completed. Then Fleck, in only his 3rd season, won 11 games.

 

[fredsdeadfriend]

Depends on how you define "top"

PJ was a popular commodity when MN hired him, in fact many said no way PJ would take the MN job

The MN job is better than some give it credit, in the B1G, in the weaker of two conferences, pays well

But we're not going to lure top coach of current top 25 team away

Basically NO ONE lures coaches away from teams that regularly make it into the Top 25, with the rare exceptions of a Bama or Notre Dame or maybe a Michigan or OSU or Oklahoma if their coach retires, but even those heavy hitters usually hire from within.

 

[michaeljordan_fan]

That's not true. It may have been true back when we played in a crappy dome and/or when the Admin didn't pay it's coaches or assts as much as other B1G schools did, and/or back when our facilities were among the worst and least funded in the conf, and back when the thinking was that maybe you couldn't win at Minnesota?

But none of that is true anymore.

Prior to Fleck coming, UMn built a new outdoor stadium. The hiring of Fleck showed they were willing to pay good money for a coach and were willing to upgrade the Asst coaches pay as well. Then soon after he was hired, the New Athletes Village/Practice Facility was completed. Then Fleck, in only his 3rd season, won 11 games.

And in seasons 4 and 5? Minnesota is not built for sustained success. They play a shit OOC schedule to pad their win totals, and choke in the big games.

 

[fredsdeadfriend]

And in seasons 4 and 5? Minnesota is not built for sustained success. They play a shit OOC schedule to pad their win totals, and choke in the big games.

Give the guy a break, had he even had a full roster with just his recruits in year 4? And it took him 4 years at WMU, but only 3 at Minnesota, so 2019 was a year ahead of schedule basically, probably in part because his predecessors didn't leave the cupboards empty and neither Kill or his replacement were fired for lack of winning. Kill stepped down for health reasons and hadn't reached his peak. He was building the program the way he had several others in the past, but he wasn't the flamboyant guy who captured headlines, he was the quieter guy in the background kind of guy so it was taking him longer to build the program up, so he wasn't even close to peaking when he stepped down. His replacement didn't take but a small step backwards but with another year or two would have been right back on the track Kill had laid down.

So Fleck DID have something to work with when he showed up, part of why he was able to have an 11 win season so quickly after showing up.



And what is this bs about "Minnesota is not built for sustained success."??? That is total moronic bullsh1t. I know you Oregonians are dumber than the average American, but you must be one of the ones that bring that average down?

 

[thunderc]

My question is this, why does Minnesota have a thread in the college football section?

 

[fredsdeadfriend]

My question is this, why does Minnesota have a thread in the college football section?

Because they play college football DUH. I know Oklahomans are not known for being very intelligent, but come on already.

 

[thunderc]

Because they play college football DUH. I know Oklahomans are not known for being very intelligent, but come on already.

Oh, so that is football they are playing. Got it.

 

[fredsdeadfriend]

Oh, so that is football they are playing. Got it.

Yep. That is what they are playing. They had a 21 game ooc winning streak going. Didn't see Oklahoma anywhere in the Top 5 of that list. That included 4 straight bowl game wins, and 11 wins just 2 seasons ago.

Oklahoma is just a Gomer Jones, a Gary Gibb, and/or a John Blake away from falling off into obscurity.

Look at Mizzou. Was doing good, til them moved into the SEC, a REAL conference, and now look at em.

Look at Nebraska before them, moved into the B1G, a REAL conference, and now look at em.

Oklahoma will need to keep Riley around awhile and/or get lucky when they replace him like they got when they hired Switzer after Fairbanks, or like Missouri and Nebraska, the REAL conf they are moving into will pound them into obscurity.

Who will want to move out to Oklanowhere where the steers are nervous if they don't have a great coach? I think the coaches I mentioned above prove that Okey needs a good coach or they won't do well. Don't know many schools where you can get away without a good coach?

 

[fredsdeadfriend]

And yes, I do understand it's harder for a team like Oklahoma, at the moment, with a good coach, who gets them into Conf Championships and into the 4 team playoffs, to build up long ooc winning streaks and that Minnesota had a weaker ooc schedule the last 21 games that helped allow them to win 21 in a row like that.

But no matter what, it was still 21 cfb teams that Minnesota beat in a row, including Auburn and Wash St(whose fans claim they are super legit), among the 21. There was also a win over highly rated and 8 or 9-0 PSU that also happened during that time period. So while it's only an exception to the general rule as of late, that 11-2 season could be an indicator that more big wins may come down the line given enough time for PJ to establish his system and get in the right players into the system.

 

[michaeljordan_fan]

And what is this bs about "Minnesota is not built for sustained success."??? That is total moronic bullsh1t. I know you Oregonians are dumber than the average American, but you must be one of the ones that bring that average down?

The meaning behind my comment is pretty clear.

When was the last time Minnesota had back-to-back double digit win totals? They may have an occasional up year, then they fall back down. They haven't sustained their success.

 

[fredsdeadfriend]

The meaning behind my comment is pretty clear.

When was the last time Minnesota had back-to-back double digit win totals? They may have an occasional up year, then they fall back down. They haven't sustained their success.

That doesn't mean that they are unable to.

Look at their coaching situation the last 25 years. It's improved from the 25 prior, but not much. Glen Mason got UMn playing better football, but his problem was lack of depth mostly. I remember the year our best DB went down to injury, we totally collapsed the rest of the way out that season. His other issue was he didn't know how to keep a huge lead, he insisted on trying to play some sort of prevent defense that two or three times resulted in him giving up huge leads to lose games, one to Michigan during the regular season that would have been a huge win for the program, and the other 2 were bowl games, that would also have been decent wins for the program, but instead became huge embarrassments, the one game broke some sort of Bowl game record for the biggest comeback ever in history and one of those 2 bowl losses cost him his job. Then we made a horrible pick to replace him, but recovered seemingly quite well when we brought in Jerry Kill, who had a very established track record of building up football programs, and was on track to do just that at Minnesota when his illness forced him to step down, which led to his asst taking over and while having a good year, recruiting went down under him and we had a small scandal that cost us a few key players. The kind of scandal that a PJ Fleck probably won't have because of the kind of players he recruits.

25 years ago or close to 25, when Glen Mason was first hired, UMn FINALLY chose to take football seriously, they literally considered dropping it completely, like the Univ of Chicago had not too long before, a minority pushed hard to get it dropped, but before they could succeed in convincing enough people to drop it, Murray Warmath did that worst to first thing from 1959 to 1960 and garnered UMn another Natl Title and that got the team a compromise win, in that instead of dropping it completely, UMn allowed it to live on, but with as little as possible funding for the most part. There were a few glimmers of hope, such as in 1977 when they beat both UCLA and Washington in the ooc and then beat #1 ranked Michigan 16-0, and then again in 1985 & 86 when Lou Holtz showed up and had them on the uptick, cept he had a notre dame clause in his contract and notre dame ended up needing a coach in 1987 and he took a bunch of highly touted recruits he had coming to Minny with him to ND, and some of those recruits were significant contributors to ND's title in 1988 was it? And so it took a little while but they got the money together to build a new outdoor stadium. Then Mason had a few good years and produced some very entertaining football to watch and so when Jerry Kill came along and seemed to also have things on the upswing, they chose to take it one more step up and build a new practice facility, which was completely just in time for that 11-2 season in 2019.

But in the short term it will totally be in Fleck's hands. He's the kind of coach that lots of traditional cfb powers won't want to deal with, so he can do well here at Minnesota without having to worry about his leaving, unless of course he does REALLY WELL, like winning a Big Ten Title kind of well, or maybe even winning a Natl Title kind of well, and then he'd need a super power like Bama or maybe Clemson or Oklahoma to be needing a new coach. Now Bama? Maybe? Saban's been there awhile and could be thinking about retiring on top? But he could try to do a Paterno and may be around for many more years, and I doubt either Clemson or Oklahoma will be looking for a new coach anytime soon, and OSU just got a new coach recently. IF Fleck can win Big Ten Titles at Minnesota, why would he need to go somewhere else? He wouldn't, he'd have everything he needed at Minnesota and his doing it at Minnesota would make what he did mean all that much more.

 

[michaeljordan_fan]

That doesn't mean that they are unable to.

You have to prove it in order for it to be believable.

 

[fredsdeadfriend]

Look at Clemson before their current coach got there.

 

[fredsdeadfriend]

You have to prove it in order for it to be believable.

6 Natl Titles and everything else UMn has done in cfb PROVED IT already.

Clemson proved a school that had gone a long while without consistently winning, could turn things around radically with the bringing in of a great coach.

 

[michaeljordan_fan]

6 Natl Titles and everything else UMn has done in cfb PROVED IT already.

Clemson proved a school that had gone a long while without consistently winning, could turn things around radically with the bringing in of a great coach.

Clemson was consistently winning in the 80s-early 90s. They only have 4 losing seasons in 45 years.

 

[fredsdeadfriend]

Look at Clemson before their current coach got there.

18 seasons of Clemson fb, with only ONE season with only 3 losses, every other season was 4 or more losses, in the weak ACC

 

[michaeljordan_fan]

18 seasons of Clemson fb, with only ONE season with only 3 losses, every other season was 4 or more losses, in the weak ACC

What time frame are you referring to? It certainly isn't the last 18 years.

 

[fredsdeadfriend]

Clemson was consistently winning in the 80s-early 90s. They only have 4 losing seasons in 45 years.

80s and 90s is a LONG TIME ago, wouldn't you say?