Everything that P.J. Fleck said on Monday - California week: Running backs, Drake Lindsey, and more
Minnesota football head coach P.J. Fleck met with the media on Monday morning ahead of the Golden Gophers’ week three matchup against the California Golden Bears. Here’s everything that the Gophers’ head coach had to say on Monday.
Minnesota head coach P.J. Fleck’s opening statement on September 8
“Good morning, everybody. I appreciate you being here. I started an hour later, so I know a lot of you have to stay up and watch the Vikings tonight. So all the best with the Vikings as they kick off their 2025 season. So I look forward to watching them. With that, we’ll open up for questions.”
On preparing for an opponent on the West Coast
P.J. FLECK: “I think it’s its own entity. I think anytime you play an opponent, you do everything you can to beat that particular opponent, whether on the East Coast, North, South, West. You prepare accordingly. The whole goal of the mission is to be 1-0 this week. I know Cal probably feels the exact same way. We got to head out there. We have a certain process that we do anytime we’re heading out to different time zones. We’ve worked with Dr. Howell, our sleep doctor, and a lot of people in the off season. Gained a lot of data, Garrett Chernoff, his staff, gained a ton of data. And then we put together the best plan we possibly can to make sure that we can play our best football from 9.30 Central to almost 1 AM Central on our bodies. So there’s a lot of things we have to do for that to happen. Not only just the football preparation like a normal week, but we have to do a lot of other things and move some schedule pieces around. So I think our players are gonna handle that really well. We had a great meeting yesterday about it. We got to start Cal a little bit during that long week when we were going into this past week, which was good. So we got kind of a jump start on then, but it’s definitely a challenge, that’s for sure, but every week has its own challenges when you want to be 1-0. And if you want to be 1-0, you got to pay a price. And there’s a lot of different things that go into that. There’s a lot of different scientific data based on, I’m not saying we’re staying on Central time. I’m saying it’s all about our bodies of where we are on Central time, looking at the time we play. When we actually go out there, there’s different places that we’ll go. We’ll actually keep it on Central time. When we actually land, we will be on Pacific time with their phones. There’s a lot of things it does with your brain and your mind and your mindset. We’re talking about, we’re still going out there on Friday. So on your body, how do you train all week to make sure that you can have the best performance you possibly can from 9.30 on your body naturally, right, to 1 AM on your body naturally. So you don’t have to buy a week to prepare for that either. So you go right into it and do the best you possibly can to prepare for it. And then go out and hopefully play your best football and train to be able to play your best football.”
On Minnesota spending as little time as possible on the road
P.J. FLECK: “Yeah, it’s pretty close. Yeah, I mean, it’s hard when you have a really late kickoff, right, and a night game on the West Coast. But we’re doing everything we possibly can to follow certain things that have really worked for us in the past. And then looking at certain things that haven’t necessarily worked for us in the past. Because we’ve got to be able to start faster in a lot of different areas. I’m not just saying just from past, but you look back as a head coach, you look back at certain games. You’re like, how can we play better when we go to that area? I mean, you’re always doing that as a football coach, whether that’s on the field, off the field, you’re doing that in your travel. You challenge a lot of people who travel is their job to find the best methods to make sure you can stay in the best performance zone you possibly can for that three and a half hours where you have to perform and be judged.”
On the Gophers’ approach at running back
P.J. FLECK: “Yeah, I mean, we talked about this at the beginning of the year. I mean, it’s not just Darius, it’s any of them. I mean, if any of them happen to go down, we’re pretty deep at the tailback position. I think a lot of guys got a ton of carries last week, which was really good. Femi did a really nice job, AJ, Cam. I mean, our leading rusher was a true freshman in Grant Washington. So we have to have a depth at that position. Anytime you’re running the football in the Big Ten, you’re gonna have to have a lot of depth behind. Maybe you’re just number one guy, because things happen. Injuries are part of the game. It’s part of it. It’s not if it happens, it’s when it happens. I thought our guys did a really good job responding to it. It happened really early in the game in the first few carries. So I thought our guys really stepped in. And these are guys who played a ton of football too. This isn’t just we provided depth and guys who haven’t played power five football or power four or power four football or high group of five football. So we trust our backs. I think they’re really talented in all different ways. And it’d be fun to put this game plan together if he can’t go.”
On Darius Taylor’s injury
P.J. FLECK: “Not much. Just asked me how it went. I said we got some good news and that was good. So because there’s levels to any type of injury, no matter what it is, right? So just got some good news. And again, the injury report will come out in two hours before.”
On the transfer portal, potentially going from two portal windows to one
P.J. FLECK: “Yeah, I absolutely love it. Because I think having a one, first of all, everybody’s got their own opinions of it. Depending on when your school starts, depending on what’s good for your school. This isn’t just a standardized league like the National Football League, where one’s for good, or if it’s good for one, it’s good for all of them. Because it’s all standardized, right? It’s all the same. This is very different. Everybody’s gonna have an opinion based on where they see themselves playing in the postseason, what their traditions are, where the school starts. How does it affect their enrollment? How does it affect them on their chase to a national championship? How it affects a first year coach, how he’s rebuilding his program. Everybody’s gonna have their own philosophy on it. I think getting back down to one portal helps a team become a team, period. I think that’s the whole main goal out of what we’re all attempting to do, is to create the best team we possibly can on the field from August through January. And I think the one portal allows us to do that. I think once you get through January, if that’s what ultimately gets decided upon, you know what your team’s gonna be like in February. Which we all knew in the old model, at least signing day, you knew that first Wednesday in February, this is our team, right? And I think the faster you can get to that, they pick January, great. If they pick February, great. They pick March, great. Whenever they got to that, because everybody had their own, and head coaches meetings, you hear it, everybody’s got their own opinions. And it’s all based on what benefits their school. So if you did that with 136 teams, you’re gonna have 136 different opinions. But if we can get to a part where you can say, okay, this is the model, we’re gonna stick to this, everybody’s gonna adapt to it. And everybody’s gonna adapt to it based on what’s good for them. But I think it’s really healthy to know what your team’s gonna look like come February. You don’t have to worry about that whole model of now we have another spring portal change. You can start building your team a lot faster without the worry of losing a lot of your depth in April. So it’s gonna be, I think, beneficial. Now again, people are gonna have their opinions. But I think for us, the way we build our program, I like where it’s at.”
On this week’s game being considered the Gophers’ first big test’
P.J. FLECK: “I think just you only get 12 opportunities guaranteed. Every single one of them are really, really big. There’s no one that’s just bigger than the other just because I think that’s all hype. I think that’s all media, that’s all outside distractions. And that’s what everybody’s job is to do. I mean, look at yesterday in week one in the National Football League. All the things that were done and all those games that came down to the end, the Buffalo-Ravens game, it was crazy. But all the hype leading up to that. Listen, it’s all about your preparation.”
On Drake Lindsey’s performance through two games
P.J. FLECK: “I think Drake’s a very mature young man for being a freshman. And this is not about micromanaging your quarterback. I don’t believe in that. He’s got the same system Max Brosmer did. If not, he’s probably got a little bit more on his plate. And it’s about, here’s what we’re doing. We need to get as good at it as fast as possible. And we need to continue to mature. I think he’s shown that he can handle himself in a lot of high pressure situations. I mean, games are games. They all count the same, right? One loss, one win. They all count for one. And the whole goal is to be 1-0. He’s shown that he’s a very mature young man. He traveled with the team all last year. But everything he does as a starter is always for the first time year one. This is the first time he’s going out to the West Coast Cal, okay? Well, that was the first time he played in a game at home against an FCS opponent last week. Game one was the first time he ever had a start. So I mean, there’s gonna be so many firsts for him. And it just goes back to his preparation, which has been outstanding. His maturity and his leadership is beyond his years right now. So proud of him, and he’s gonna continue to learn. He’s gonna fail, he’s gonna grow. He’s gonna have some good plays. He’s gonna have some plays he probably wants back. He’s gonna keep learning situational football. And that knowing doing is what we have to continue to connect. So, so far, I’m really, really pleased with what he’s been able to do and what he can handle. And Coach Harbaugh’s doing a really good job along with that relationship with those two.”
On continuously coaching despite what the scoreboard says
P.J. FLECK: “Well, there were some things, it doesn’t matter. Here’s the one thing, we have 60 minutes of football. Well, we have 53 minutes of football. We have a sign in our coaching office and our staff rooms that says coach everything. I mean, I don’t think you could tell whether we were up 66 or we were down 66. We were about coaching our players. Every single person that went on the field, that standard was set to our standard as an organization. Not a standard of like, okay, you’re a two or a three, and this is mop up time. There is no mop up time. No such thing as mop up time. I’ve never believed in that. Just like I don’t believe in the momentum piece. I don’t believe in the mop up time piece. You’re going in there, execute the game plan, and you’re gonna be evaluated based on how you execute that game plan, and how you execute your fundamentals, your technique, and it doesn’t matter what the score is, and it doesn’t matter what the time is. And I think that we had 76 players play. I wanted to have about 15 to 16 more players play. There was still, on my chart, it was seven minutes ago, there was a whole new platoon going in the game. And that’s to gain experience, to gain maturity, to be able to find out what we can do, to continue to bring the floor of the program up, to give them the experience. Nothing’s better than experience. Nothing, nothing replaces experience. You have to go play the game to be good at the game. But the standard, no matter who’s in the game, is incredibly high. And I think when you watched our coaches coach, from the start of the game to the end of the game, we were coaching. And there’s so many certain small moments, Randy, that we could really learn from. One of them was the punt, the sky punt that was bounced at the three, went in the end zone, might as well just go for it. And Tom and I, he’s gonna keep learning situational football. I thought Tom did a tremendous job holding on to that ball. Tom’s a really good punter, really good. But in that certain situation, people could sit there and say, that’s no big deal. Or you could take that as that teaching moment, that five-second teaching moment, right then, to know that that’s not the standard, right? And I think that’s, hopefully, I answered your question. Because it’s kind of all over the place.”
On California QB Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele
P.J. FLECK: “Sure, yeah, he doesn’t look like a true freshman. He looks like he’s been there a long time. You can tell he’s very poised, very mature. It looks like he’s played at Cal for a long time already. He’s got a good pocket presence. He knows when to use his legs. He’s very accurate. They do a really good job catching the ball for him. But he is a really, really talented QB. The poise for him as a true freshman is very rare. So we got our work cut out for us, that’s for sure.”
On how he assesses the performance of the running backs from week one to week two
P.J. FLECK: “Well, I think when you look at the running backs, you look at week one, and Darius took the majority of the carries. But I think when you kind of go back and you look at AJ, you look at Cam, you look at Femi, I mean, that’s kind of the next up mentality. And I thought they did a good job with that.”
On explosive plays and the number of players who played against Northwestern State
P.J. FLECK: “It was good to hit the explosive play to Javon from Drake, getting an explosive play. A lot of our players, Andy, only played nine to ten snaps. I mean, it’s not a lot. We did some extra stuff yesterday because we had to run a little bit. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I mean, I think we had 37 total plays on defense in a 66 to nothing game, almost 40 some, 40, 42 plays against Buffalo. That’s not a lot. It’s either a really good thing or a really bad thing, right? And this happens to be a really good thing at the start of the season. So we just got to continue to build on that.”
On the performances of the backup quarterbacks
P.J. FLECK: “There are a lot of different guys that got in there. I think Max, being the backup quarterback, (Max) Shikenjanski did a really good job. He was, what was he, four or five for 80 yards plus a touchdown. But I thought he handled himself really well. Dylan Wittke got in there and handled himself really well, getting us in the right plays. The interception, I’m sure he wants back. He won’t make that mistake again. But I thought he handled himself really well in the quarterback position and what we were going to do.”
On the performance of LB Matt Kingsbury
P.J. FLECK: “Then defensively, watching Matt Kingsbury, I think a lot of people saw him play two years ago as a true freshman. When two years ago, we lost a lot of depth in the portal, in the second portal. And to your question, Ryan, and he had to play as a true freshman, like a lot of our guys did that year. We weren’t necessarily very good on defense. And now all that experience is paying off. And I thought he played really well. He’s gonna continue to work on his eyes and things like that. But boy, swarming to the ball, I mean, our guys are doing that all over the place on offense, on defense. I mean, again, they get 12 opportunities to play, and you want to see our style and our how everywhere, every play. And we got 10 in a row, and it’s all power for football. I don’t expect anything less.”
On Cal’s defensive play and Coach Justin Wilcox’s defensive approach
P.J. FLECK: “Very good. I have a lot of respect for Coach Wilcox and what he’s been able to do throughout his career as a defensive football coach. And kind of like us a little bit, where they swarm to the ball. They play violently. They’re really smart. They’re very advantageous on being in the right place, right time. Taking advantage of when you’re gonna give them the ball, whether it’s through the air and knock some balls out. Got some takeaways, scored points off takeaways. At Oregon State game, they got 10 points off of takeaways. And also, I think they had one called back. So they swarm to the ball, they’re really aggressive. They have a defensive end, number 43, and they’re all really good. But this 43, I mean, he plays with a really, really high motor. Kind of reminds you of a boy type player that we had. Very, very productive. I mean, he’s got a high, high motor. And then one of the best players I’ve watched on tape is their linebacker zero. Now, if you go back to the old Pac-10, Pac-12, I mean, whatever it was at that particular moment, it’s so fast how it goes, right? When you go back to that, I think he was the freshman player of the year. His freshman year, he is very, very active. It kind of reminds you of a Maverick Baranowski, kind of Cody Lindenberg put together. He is very active, he’s one of the best players on defense. But they swarm to the ball, they’ve got really good secondary. They’ve made a bunch of plays in the secondary. Talk about tough plays, not balls that just came right to them. They’ve had to divide coverage and cover three, step in front of a seam. And they’ve done a lot of really good things on defense. And I know that’s where coach Wilcox takes a lot of pride. He’s a defensive minded coach, and you can see his DNA all over that defense. And then you got Coach Harsin on offense, who’s been around to a lot of different places. Been a head coach multiple places, been a coordinator a lot of places, and you can see his imprint too. So we have a huge challenge playing an ACC team. And Cal, like I told you before, I think they lost four total games last year by like nine total points. This could have been a 10 win team easily last year. When you look at the structure of their schedule, a lot of people break down our schedule and look at the one-possession games. I mean, they could have won a lot more games, and they’re that close. So we know they’re a really good football team. We feel like we’re a really good football team, feel like it’s gonna be a really good matchup there out in Berkeley.”
Stay Tuned
Stay tuned to Gophers Nation as we bring the latest updates on the Golden Gophers’ matchup against California.
Join Gophers Nation for inside access on the Golden Gophers!
Sign up here: https://www.on3.com/sites/gophers-nation/join/
GophersNation.com provides everything that passionate Minnesota fans need. Exclusive, wall-to-wall coverage of the Minnesota Golden Gophers athletes and recruiting.
Not a subscriber? That’s okay! It’s never too late to subscribe to Gophers Nation. Not only will you get access to each week’s full visitors list, but you’ll also have the following perks to go along with your subscription!
* Access to Inside Gophers Nation, our premium message board, where you can talk with fellow Minnesota fans as well as the Gophers Nation staff.
* In-depth breakdowns — Gophers Nation provides the latest analytics, stats, and more on the Golden Gophers, their opponents, and more. Each week, dive deeper into the Golden Gophers’ previous game and future opponents.
*Dedicated team coverage — Gophers Nation every week is ready to provide the latest scoops and coverage on Minnesota Golden Gophers football, basketball, and hockey.
* Complete recruiting coverage — We keep you up to speed on all of Minnesota’s efforts on the recruiting trail. Keep up to date with who the Gophers are targeting from the day they’re offered to the day they sign their letters of intent.
* Full network access — On top of our coverage at Gophers Nation, you’ll also receive FULL ACCESS to ALL On3 fan sites and national message boards, access to Rivals recruiting and high school coverage, featuring the biggest names in the recruiting inudstry, and access to On3’s national talent including some of the nation’s top college analysts in Andy Staples, Brett McMurphy, Pete Nakos, Ari Wasserman, and more.
If that’s not enough, there’s another benefit to signing up for Gophers Nation today!
Join Gophers Nation now for $1 your first week and enjoy a complimentary year of The Athletic – included with your membership.
Sign up here: https://www.on3.com/sites/gophers-nation/join/
