Everything P.J. Fleck said during his Monday press conference - Michigan State week
Minnesota head coach P.J. Fleck met with the media on Monday morning as the Minnesota Golden Gophers begin their preparations for the Michigan State Spartans, who make their way to the Twin Cities this Saturday.
Here’s everything that Fleck had to say on Monday.
Opening Statement
Fleck: “All right, good morning, everybody. Thanks for being here. Real quick with the opening statement just from last week. I mean, that was unacceptable. Players played really, really hard though. You never know what you’re going to, when the score’s like that. You go back on the film and you look at it, you don’t know what you’re going to see. You have a really good feeling of it. Never, never question our, how hard we play and our toughness, but we executed very poorly. So when you execute poorly, I mean, that comes down to the coaching staff, that comes down to me, and take full responsibility of that. Before you know it, you’re down 17, nothing. I mean, as quick as you can blink. And that is the opposite formula to beat Iowa, as we all know. So completely unacceptable, falls on my shoulders. We did not start fast in offense, defense, or special teams. So that’s got to be a main focus as we continue to go forward. And there’s a difference between knowing and doing. Difference between about knowing it and then going and doing it and executing it. And we didn’t do it on Saturday. So with that, we’ll open up for questions.”
On Minnesota’s slow starts this season
Fleck: “Well, first of all, it’s starting fast, accelerating middle, and finish strong. I think every coach in the country wants that. I think every team in the country wants that. To obtain that, it’s very difficult. You see teams maybe don’t start fast, they finish strong. Maybe they start really fast, but they don’t finish strong. Vice versa, there’s a lull in the middle. You don’t win the middle eight. You do win the middle eight. Great thing about college coaching is there’s always something to fix and there’s always something to get better at. Identifying it is one thing, and then going out there and executing it and making it better is another thing. And that’s what our team’s working on. It’s not being overlooked at all. It’s definitely something that’s being addressed, but it comes down to an execution piece. And again, that comes down to our coaches putting them in the position to be really successful, giving them things we can handle, and then up to players to say, you know, we are going to start fast. So it’s a combination of all of us, but that’s not good enough at all, Andy.”
On the defense’s road struggles
Fleck: “I wish I had that answer, Ryan, because I’d fix it like five games ago. We got to get takeaways. We’re built as an offense, defense, and special teams to play complementary football. That’s the way we’ve always been built. And when we’re not playing complementary football, like Saturday, we’re an offense, defense, and special teams, and you have to give them credit. They’re a really good football team, played extremely well, and we did not. And when that happens, you see what the outcome is. But the takeaways are really, really critical. When you go into a game in Iowa and you lose the takeaway battle three to nothing, I mean, you’re not going to win many of those games at all. That is their recipe to winning. That is our recipe to winning, and we just did the opposite. So it is a huge emphasis for us. But again, I want our guys to go out there and play, and I want them to play really fast, hungry, and efficient, and go execute. And whether that’s takeaways, whether that’s defense, whether that’s tackling, whether that’s offense, whether that’s catching the ball, running the ball, we have to be better in all facets, offense, defense, and special teams, those three phases. We’d have to continue to get better, and most teams continue that we coach and always get better as the year goes on. That doesn’t mean that you’re not going to have some really, really hard games that you really got to swallow a tough pill, but the pill is not like it fixes tomorrow. It’s something that you have to get better at, and you have to make a conscious choice to get better at. The takeaways are something that we went into it and said we’re going to have to have at least plus three to win this football game. Well, we had the opposite, and we lost a football game. When you go into it, you are 78% the ball, tackling, and explosive plays. We lost all three. So again, when you come in on Sunday, this isn’t an emotional program where it’s going back and forth, back and forth. You never know what you’re going to get. Sunday, we came in. We lost the ball. We lost tackling. We lost explosive plays. Simple. So now we got to go back and make sure that we don’t lose those things because when we win them, we’re really good. When we don’t, we’re not very good, and they get scholarships and paid too, and they got really good coaches as well, and that is not just the recipe for the Minnesota Golden Gophers. That’s a recipe for most teams in the country, and that’s why it’s a statistic directly tied to winning, and when you’re not winning those, you’re not going to win much. So I always look at why didn’t we win? That helps me dissect the game and then build the practice plan from then out.”
On Drake Lindsey’s performance
Fleck: “He’s been great. I thought his prep all week was tremendous. I think one of you asked, did you see this coming? I think that’s a common question. Did you see this coming? I mean, no, but you know it’s going to happen at some point. You know they’re going to have some hard times, some struggles. They’re going to be in an environment where they don’t play well, and they’re going to make some decisions that you touch the stove. That’s part of growth. The only way, the biggest pieces of growth that come from failing, and one thing about him is he’s got a great failing mechanism where he can flush it, learn, and move on. Nobody works harder than that young man, and as you play a freshman, you’re going to have to understand. There’s going to be some really highs. There’s going to be some hard dips, but that’s part of the growth process, and the more you can have, the more leather skin and the more scars you’re going to build as you keep going forward, and not to say we want that to happen on Saturday at all. I’m not saying that, but I am saying that is part of a journey and a process to any single quarterback I think that plays their freshman season, and that’s why you don’t see a ton of it, but I think he’s doing a really good job of preparing, of being able to have a great response mechanism built in, and he’s already started this week even better than he did last week, so he’s built for that piece, but that doesn’t make him immune to having a hard game.”
On the punting against Iowa
Fleck: “Well, the game plan was to punt it all out of bounds, and we did not do that. We were one out of seven, so I’m not doing a very good job of making sure that we do exactly what we call, and that’s disappointing to me as the head football coach, because I have a lot of confidence and pride in what we do and how we do it, and I have a lot of confidence in Tom, and we’ve got to execute, and because we’re capable of executing at a really high level, so Mike McCarthy told me a long time ago, and told our offense in San Francisco, job of a coach is teaching the man, job of a player is prepare, perform, and it’s as simple as it gets, and it still rings true to this day, whether it’s high school, college, or the NFL, and we got to be way better at that, but yeah, I mean, I think that there was a, it went off the side of his foot, you know, and it’s not a very good punt, so he’ll learn from that as well. You know, he played in big time football for the first time too, and it’s unfortunate that it all came together in Iowa City, and that’s not fair to our fans, that’s not fair to the alum, and it’s not fair to our football team, who’s worked really, really hard, but life’s not fair, and you reap what you sow. You don’t play well, and you’re going to get, in this league, you don’t play well, you don’t play your best, doesn’t matter who you play or where you’re at, you’re going to get beat, and you’re going to get beat soundly, so, but the punt coverage piece, you know, we just got to get better fundamentally and technique-wise, you know, we don’t shoot, you know, we don’t shoot our gun, we call it on the near hip, both gunners, and when you do that against 21, he’s going to, and you don’t do your technique, and you don’t keep him in a phone booth, and you don’t keep it tight, he’s going to take it to the house, and he definitely did that, so he’s a really good returner, but we didn’t execute, and again, this goes back from offense, defense especially, that’s why it completely falls on my shoulders, because it wasn’t just offense, wasn’t defense, wasn’t just specialties, it was all three, and yeah, that’s not a good formula to win, especially when you’re playing a team like Iowa, who’s so good in all three, and forces you to play really precise, that was the whole thing this week, go in, play really precise, and we did the opposite of that.”
What have you seen from Michigan State so far?
Fleck: “Yeah, I mean, they play exceptionally hard, and you know, Coach Rossi did a tremendous amount for this program, and the University of Minnesota, and I have a lot of respect for him, and what he’s done, and he’s got an unbelievable family, he’s a great husband, great father, just an awesome man, and you know, when you watch his defense, and it looks like our defense, the way they play, how hard they play, they are really deep up front defensively, tackle really well at linebacker, they got some really good corners, they love to press coverage, they believe in their guys on the perimeter, and the back end, and he mixes it up a lot, and that’s Joe Rossi defense, keep you guessing, keep things in front, and he does a really good job at the simple things.”
Not being an “emotional program” and what it looks like coming off a blowout loss
Fleck: “Well, I think there’s a difference between playing with emotion, being full of emotion, and being emotional. I think emotion is tied to response, it’s a trained behavior, you’re prepared for the environment, you’re prepared for the situation, you don’t let circumstance dictate your behavior, that’s emotion. Emotional is when you cross that boundary, where the circumstance will dictate your behavior, it’s a reaction based on how society wants us to react, you know, something bad happens, they all, everybody wants you to be mad, something good happens, everybody wants you to celebrate, it’s being able to be the standard, you know, through the really good times and the really hard times, and not take anything for granted, you know, and I think that’s, there’s a big difference between crossing that line, and so, when I say that, we don’t want to be, we don’t want to cross that line into emotional, that’s really like the undisciplined piece, it’s the reactionary piece, and, you know, we’re 0-1 in the Iowa season, and it wasn’t very good, and I get that, but that was one game, and before we knew it, eight plays into it, we’re down 17-0, and unfortunately, in our losses, we’ve been down pretty early, and some other games that we’ve come back and win, we’ve been down pretty early, a very different formula than maybe what we’ve had with other seasons, but this is why it’s a 2025 season, it’s not the same as other seasons, as you can see in the world of college football right now.”
Hope to give us an update on Darius’s status here going forward this week. Is there an update on Darius?
Fleck: “No, no update on Darius, the medical staff will handle all of the medical concerns, and the injury report will come out over two hours before kickoff, but thanks for the question.”
What impresses him about the Michigan State offense?
Fleck: “I think everything starts with the quarterback, you know, he’s really agile, you know, he extends plays constantly, they’ve got a really good receiver in Marsh, they’ve got a bunch of other guys who are big, long, fast, you know, they’re putting points up against anybody that they play, when you look at their offense, you know, they want to establish the ground game, and, you know, this is just typical Big Ten football, you know, you got to be able to limit what the quarterback does and how he does it, you got to be able to eliminate the run, and you got to be able to take, you know, you got to be able to eliminate, you know, some of the big time threats on the outside, but everything starts with the quarterback, you know, he’s playing, you know, I know that, you know, you probably look at it and sit there and go, okay, I don’t look at all the stats, I look at how the kid plays, and I tell you what, he plays his heart out, from quarterback sneaks, to doing a lot of the dirty work, to throwing the ball down the field, to getting hard yards, to being a great athlete and extending plays, I mean, he’s doing a really good job, that’s for sure.”
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