Everything that P.J. Fleck said on Wednesday at 2025 Big Ten Media Days
On Wedesday at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Nevada, Minnesota head coach P.J. Fleck met with the media at the 2025 Big Ten Media Days for 15 minutes. Almost all the time alloted to Fleck on Wednesday was used on his opening statement, leaving him time for one question.
Below, Gophers fans can find the full transcript from Fleck’s time at the podium. Fleck will meet with the media in a smaller breakout session later on Wednesday as well, as will quarterback Drake Lindsey, running back Darius Taylor, defensive lineman Anthony Smith, and safety Koi Perich.
OPENING STATEMENT
First and foremost, I just want to thank Commissioner Petitti for his unwavering leadership really through these evolving times in college football. He’s been an absolute rock star and we love working for him. I want to thank my wife, Heather, and my kids, Gavin, Carter, Paisley, and Harper, for allowing me to live my dream every single day as a college football coach.
I truly love you guys. I think one of the most underappreciated things in our sport and our profession isn’t necessarily just where you work, but it’s who you work for. I think I work for the best athletic director in all of college athletics because of his values and how he looks at college athletics even to this day in our changing world of college athletics.
I have the best athletic director in the country, Mark Boyle. Our president, Rebecca Cunningham, has been so supportive in her short time here at the University of Minnesota. Obviously, our Board of Regents have been absolutely awesome.
Believe it or not, this is our ninth season going on at the University of Minnesota. When we first got here, we said that there were six head coaches in 12 years before we got there. We talked about cultural sustainability will be key to Minnesota’s success.
This is our ninth year and we’re really proud of that. I’m grateful to assign another extension that we can continue to be at the University of Minnesota, a place that I absolutely have fallen in love with. I love to make a life there and love to live and love, obviously, to coach our student athletes.
The last thank you is to the Big Ten for having this in Las Vegas to that, period. Viva Las Vegas, baby. I absolutely love this city, so this is great for us to be able to be here.
Not only that, what I love about this is bringing our donors with us. College football is changing. College athletics are changing.
What is great about it is our donors get to know our players a lot more. We went to dinner last night and had an unbelievable time. To take that further, some of our former players got to be in Spain with one of our donors.
They connected because they were in the same place at the same time and got a chance to do that. We had Tony Fiorella and his field management company, got some of our former players together, and they got a chance to meet in his house in Spain. I think that’s huge.
Last night’s dinner, we had Greg Eslinger having dinner with us. He’s going to be inducted here in this city in the NFF Hall of Fame here in December. He got to be around our players and talk about his experience.
Having our donors be able to come along with us was absolutely critical. Tonight, we take our players to our favorite restaurant, Prime in Bellagio, with our favorite waiter, Howard. We get to experience that with our players here in Vegas.Nothing better than that.
FLECK ON TRANSITIONING TO 2025 AND LOOKING BACK AT 2024:
As we transition and talk a little bit about 25, I do want to stop and hit on 2024 a little bit. I think it’s always key to know where you’ve been, to know where you’re going to go.
For us, we talk about ourselves being the ultimate life program. I know there’s changing aspects of college athletics, but they’re still student athletes. Until somebody tells me differently, we are going to run the best life collegiate program in America, and that’s what we’ll continue to do.
Academically, we have over a 3.2 GPA as a football program. We had 10 players with a 4.0 this past semester. We’ve got 10 academic All-Americans since we’ve been there, and this past semester, there were 59 All-Big 10 academic selections from the Gophers.
Not enough people talk about that, and they’re student athletes still. It doesn’t mean that in the transformational programs and things like that, there aren’t transactions. There are transactions within the transformational programs.
I’ve had to learn that and adapt to that as well. Athletically, we just finished up being 6-0 in our bowl games here in Minnesota. We’ve been here eight years, going on nine.
One of those was the COVID year where we only played seven games, but we won six straight bowl games with us at the University of Minnesota, which we’re really proud of. It’s six straight years. Talk about developing young people.
You recruit them, you develop them, you retain them, and you repeat. We’re talking about six straight years of a first- or second-round draft pick in a row at the University of Minnesota. A huge accomplishment for us and players dreaming of doing something when they arrive on campus and watching that be fulfilled as they go through their time here.
This is the highest winning percentage of any staff in 75-plus years since Bernie Beard at the University of Minnesota. And that takes players, that takes staff, it takes cultural sustainability, it takes retention, it takes donors, it takes our fans, it takes our state and our city, it takes everybody for us to be able to do that. We’re tied for most ranked wins, six in the last six years, and we’ve had eight All-Americans.
It’s a lot in the short eight years that we’ve been there. Socially and spiritually, we break that down academically, athletically, socially, spiritually. Our players are serving and giving at an all-time rate and not being paid for it.
They’re going to the Children’s Hospital, our Row the Boat Barbecue. They’re at our diaper drives, which we’ve already given out more than 100,000 diapers. They do turkey drives. They do a trick-or-treat drive for Hope Kids. They run a Hope Kids camp. This is the part of college football that’s not being looked at anymore and it’s just being skipped.
This is still an educational program. We have to continue to educate our young people about life, not just money. What I love about our football team as we go into 2025 is they want to do it.
They don’t have to do it. They don’t have to do it because they’re getting paid. They want to do it.
They want to be the best team they can be. One word to describe this football team in 2025 are multipliers. It’s the best way to describe this football team.
This is a very, very talented football team, but they’re multipliers. A times B times C times D. They’re a team. That’s what a team has.
They legitimately want other people to be successful and they make sure those people are successful, whether they’re at the same position, they’re competing with them or not.
Just like you’re adding out in the world. Can you connect that team? This team has done an unbelievable job of amplifying the talents around each other and multiplying those talents. Speaking of multiplying those talents, we brought four individuals.
These players are absolute multipliers in every way, shape, and form.
FLECK ON RB DARIUS TAYLOR
Darius Taylor, our running back, is in the second year in the program. He’s one of the best human beings you will ever, ever meet. His second year here (at media days) and the third in the program, I should say. Sorry about that. He was honorable mention All Big Ten last year. Again, one of the best players you’ll ever meet.
Versatile is the best word I can describe about him. Look at him. He caught 54 passes on the running back last year. And those who have followed Gopher football, Mohamed Ibrahim, maybe caught one in three years. He caught 54 in one year. He’s a former high school running back. Not only can he run the ball really well, but he can catch the ball out the back. Incredible human being.
His grandma, and his auntie, deserve a lot of credit for that. Loves cars. It’s a good time in college athletics to like cars.He’s from Detroit, Michigan. He shouldn’t like cars. And it’s a great time in college football to like cars.And the best part about him is when he found out he was coming to Vegas, he had one request. He goes, I want to meet Chumlee from Pawn Stocks. So, Chumlee, if you’re out there and you’re watching this, come on over. I’d love Darius Taylor to be able to shake your hand.
FLECK ON DL ANTHONY SMITH
Our next player we brought, Anthony Smith, one of our best defensive ends, one of the best defensive ends in the league. I don’t know if I mentioned all day, 10 last year, 4th year in the program.
He’s part of the ASCA All-Comforts team nominating. Talk about charismatic. This kid is that.
He’ll come up to you. It might be in a bad mood. You go up to him.
You’re going to leave with a smile on your face. He’s 6’5″, 6’6″, 295 pounds, but he’s a great snowboarder, believe it or not. And one thing people don’t know about him, he’s a thrifter.
He can put the best $3.65 outfit together better than anybody. Very, very electric individual.
Loves the outdoors. Great state to be in if he likes the outdoors. And he’s really transitioned, in my opinion, from a high school basketball player recruit where he broke numerous high school rims to becoming a really tough, dynamic football player.
FLECK ON KOI PERICH
Some of you know our safety. He’s only been on campus 13 months. Koi Perich, our All-American safety, freshman All-American, and first team All-Big Ten selection.
I think that’s really impressive when you think about it. He got there in June. And then by December, he was all of that. But it doesn’t surprise me if you watch this kid play basketball, run track, play football. He loves to play.
He’s a throwback. He’s like a lot of us that grew up. You came home when the lights went on, but you played all day. That’s what he loves to do.
You know, it’s interesting. When he was at the High School All-American game, I was getting calls from coaches. I’d be like, hey, how’s Koi doing? How’s Koi doing? And they’d be like, you know, he’s all right.
And bang, into the game, he’s the MVP of the game. He blocks a punt for a touchdown. He has an interception. And all he does is dominate. He can’t wait to play.
His mom, Danielle, dad, George, deserve a lot of credit from the young dad that they raised.
And we’re lucky that we have him. He’s a direct example of the recruiting success we are having at the University of Minnesota. And we said that was going to take cultural sustainability.
We have kids that we’re recruiting now that went to camp when they were 6 to 7 years old, but now they’re in high school. The in-state recruiting is better than ever. But it was going to take, whether it was me or another coach in Minnesota with six coaches in 12 years, it was going to take cultural sustainability.
Last thing about Koi, number three, he’s going to play offense, defense, and specials. I think that’s very clear, and everybody understands that. That’s three different spots. Offense, defense, specials is number three. And him and Drake Lindsey, our quarterback, are best friends. And how good of friends they are is Drake Lindsey changed his number from 3 to 5 to make sure Koi had his number.
So I’m talking about a selfless teammate.
FLECK ON QB DRAKE LINDSEY
Speaking of Drake, we brought Drake along as well. Our quarterback for Fayetteville, Arkansas, who was a redshirt freshman for us last year, played a very, very small amount, but really studied Max Grossberg constantly.
Really just was his right-hand man. Learned how to lead the entire football team at a very young age. And you know how hard it is to find a freshman quarterback you can have for those four years.
We feel like we have a really good quarterback in Drake Lindsey. It’s interesting with the Minnesota ties. His grandfather played for Bud Grant, the Vikings.
I know his dad, J.D., his mom, Amy, and his stepmom, Brooke, are very, very proud of him. But we’re really thankful for the relationship him and Max had as he transitions into our quarterback. And he’s the ultimate connector. He brought a bunch of players down to Pensacola, Florida, in May to really work on the pass game and do all those things. So he’s an ultimate multiplier.
The last thing I want to hit on is this.
FLECK ON BEING DELUSIONAL
I always give you guys three things that we kind of talk about with our program going into the year. There’s three things we’ve hit on since January. It’s be delusional, get to, and give more.
The be delusional part, for the media, I’ve got to explain that. It means no capital job. No limitations.
Dreaming big. With the college football playoff and where it is, as Indiana showed last year, anybody can get there. And if we’re delusional enough to know we can do that, we can get there.
And when you’re somewhere long enough, the standards are one thing, but then you continue to raise the expectations, and that’s what we want to continue to do. But we want to do that off the field as well. We want to be delusional as husbands, as fathers, as brothers, as sons, as members of our community.
Take the cap off the job. Limitless.
The second thing is get to. here’s two things that connect a lot more than anything. It’s empathy and gratitude. Our players are incredibly grateful, and they have empathy. They can walk a mile in somebody else’s shoes. They’re willing to do that for each other. So the get to piece is really, really critical.
FLECK ON RAISINING THE EXPECTATIONS, SITUATIONAL FOOTBALL
And the last part is give more. The great thing about Minnesota now is when you’re 8-5 at night, after a six-or-eight-year-old bowl game, with our program being there in technically six to seven years, that’s tremendous, but we’ve got to continue to raise the expectations.
We were 3-4 in one possession game last year, but people always said, well, how do you improve that? You’ve got to win situational football.
You’ve got to be better in two minutes. You’ve got to be better in four minutes. That’s what we’ve been focusing on since January, that if we can give a little bit more and we can flip those just like we did in 2019, six-and-one-in-one possession games, that’s how you win 11 games in the Big Ten.
There are nine conference games. It is a hard league. You have got to be able to find ways to win those one-possession games.
We’re a missed field goal, an onside kickoff size, and a fourth and three away from having that flip to six-and-one and being in the college football playoff, and that’s what our players know, and that’s what they believe. We’re very, very excited for the 2025 season.
What would P.J. Fleck tell a younger version of himself?
I would say that control is for amateurs. I think that was one of the hardest things that I had to deal with my 13th year being a head football coach, 44 years old.
I think that was the hardest part is that as a coach, in the older way of college football, you had control of so many other things. And I think in this new world, whether it’s with outside parties, it’s with agents, it’s with NIL collectives, it’s with donors and boosters, it’s with this new era, you have to trust your people more than you’ve ever trusted. Our jobs as head coaches have changed an awful lot.
But we will not stop being a light program because my job is to make sure that they’re better men than they are football players. And better men over the course of 13 years, in my experience, have become the better football players. The better football player that’s not the better person usually doesn’t pay it out as much.
So continue to understand control is for amateurs. Trusting your people even a lot more. And that’s what I would tell the younger self.
