Everything that P.J. Fleck said during his Monday press conference
On Monday, Minnesota Golden Gophers’ head coach P.J. Fleck met with the Minnesota media to discuss the Golden Gophers, with just over a week until the Gophers kick off their 2025 season against the Buffalo Bulls on August 28 at Huntington Bank Stadium.
On his wide receiver room:
“I really like this group of wide receivers, I really do. These guys are really efficient, they catch the ball really well. They’re really good man coverage, good in space. They understand spatial awareness, they understand the system. I think cohesively, Coach Simon has done a really good job of connecting this unit. There’s not this one name that everybody knows like Daniel Jackson or Rashad Bateman or Tyler Johnson. But collectively, it has a chance to be one of our best units we’ve ever had here. They’re very selfless, they really don’t care who gets the football. I give them a lot of credit for that because you add players and then you wanna continue to have it multiply within the system. And I think we’ve been able to do that.
But Le’Meke Brockington is a player who has played a ton of football here. I talk to the NFL scouts all the time about Le’Meke. I mean, this guy’s an over 40 foot broad jumper, or close to a 12 foot broad jumper, over a 40 inch vertical. He’s gonna run really fast, he’s a 700 pound squatter. He’s a great blocker, he can fly. So it’s been fun to watch him lead that entire unit.
And then everybody else from there has great opportunities to go out there and play, whether that’s Logan Loya, who we brought from UCLA. Whether that’s Jalen Smith, Kenrick Lanier has done a really good job of stepping in a role and done a really good job. So there’s just a bunch of guys who have really kind of come together and formed, I think, a really, really good wide receiver unit. Javon Tracy that came over from Miami (OH) has been a standout for us. So it’s gonna be a lot of fun to watch where this all goes.
But I said this at Big Ten Media Day, it’s not about just Drake Lindsey. It’s about how well the supporting cast can do around him. That’s ultimately gonna be the story of the 2025 offense. It’s how well the tight ends, the running backs, the wide receivers, the o-line play is gonna make Drake Lindsey a really good quarterback.”
On Camp Battles
“Yeah, I mean, we’re getting pretty close to setting what we want. I mean, the great thing about this football team, Andy, is that we’re really deep at a lot of different positions. This isn’t just like, okay, this is the starter. There’s a lot of starters. There’s a lot of packages. Everybody’s gonna have a chance to play. When you’re talking about not only 11 guys on offense, defense, but the backups as well, I don’t really look at them as backups. I mean, they have to go out there and play football. I think I play football at a really high level. The more you have to do that, the more creative you can be on defense, the more creative you can be on offense, opens up the playbook on both sides.
And then when you look at our special teams unit, I think this has a chance to be one of our best special teams years. Different positions, whether that’s our punt team or a punt return team. And I just look across the board and you’re reading all the depths of who those guys are. And you’re like, wow, he’s a really, really special player. Like a kid like Mason Carrier, who might not have played a bunch just yet. But he’s a redshirt freshman. He’s a Minnesota kid. But you talk about a future linebacker, but also special teams. I mean, it’s like having another Derrick LeCaptain out there. And you kind of look and there’s all these Derrick LeCaptains. Different athleticism, but that’s what helps with our depth.
But the competitive battles, I mean, corner has been a really competitive battle all training camp. And the more you give these guys, the better they do. I think that’s what’s been fun about coaching this team. The more you continue to drive and push them, and the competition gets higher and higher, the better they get. It’s been a, you knew I thought we could do that, and then we did it. And it was like, wow, they just, they handled it really, really well.
So it’s been a very demanding training camp, but they’ve answered the bell in a lot of different ways. And then when you look at the punting and kicking competitions, they have been very good too. So I think we’re honing in on what we want to do with all of it. But the great thing is those competitions continue to go all the way through the season too.
The job of a coach is to teach and demand. The job of a player is to prepare and perform when we’re talking about straight football. Our guys do a great job preparing, and the performance constantly gets evaluated day in, day out.”
On the Gophers’ floor and ceiling changing during his tenure:
“Well, I think the job of any head football coach is to create a standard that’s really high and you continue to either meet that standard and then create another standard and you just continue to do that. You want to raise the level of expectation within the program constantly on the field and I think we’ve continued to do that. I don’t think we’ve ever sat back and settled for anything.
I think any program when you’re in it nine years, you always want to take what the next right step is. What is the next right step? That’s going to be subjective to a lot of different people. As a head football coach, my job is to get the most out of my football team every single year, academically, athletically, socially and spiritually in this life program.
And that is my ultimate focus. If you get the most out of your players, you’re going to have a chance to be really successful on the football field. If you’re not getting the most out of your players as people, you probably won’t have as good of a year.
But I think that we want, as this whole talk of college football playoff expansion and all these certain things, I think we have to continue to look at for us, that is realistic expectations as we keep moving forward. I think Andy asked me that before even Big Ten Media Day. You’re talking more and more about the college football playoff.
Well, I’d want a head coach that wants to talk about it, especially when there’s a much better chance for a lot of other people to get in it. When there was only four, I mean, you looked at it and a lot of you could sit there and probably name the four preseason that, maybe five, you could probably name. And four of those five are probably going to find a way in it.
I think as we keep evolving in the new world of college athletics, that becomes really realistic for us. And if you look at what people are proposing, there’s been a lot of seasons we’ve been really close to. So we know that we’re gonna have to win a lot of one position games when you’re in the Big Ten, you know that.
And again, you just want to continue to raise the level of expectations. And I said that when I first got here. I mean, as a head football coach, you want to raise the level of expectations at some point.
We all get hired to get fired at some point. You want to raise the level of expectation. If you’re not meeting your own expectation at some point where you’ve raised the bar for that program, then so be it.
But that’s what you want to do. And that’s what our vision is, is to continue to change our best and be better. You can look at it as a number.
We look at where we are in our program. We’re getting different recruits than we’ve ever gotten here at the University of Minnesota. We’re keeping in-state talent more than we ever have. And people are picking us over who they used to pick over us. And we’re doing it a lot. And you’re looking at our retention.
I think it’s a top five, top six retention of all power four programs in the country. And we don’t have the highest NIL. I think that’s very realistic and that’s well documented.
So the life program works. You can have the transformation along with transactional. You can have that.
And I think we’re really proud of where we are. And I think we’ve done exactly what we said we were going to do. And now it’s on the field.
We have, when you look at the 12-team playoff and look at where they’re going to expand, who knows? The sky’s the limit for the University of Minnesota. And I want our players to realize that, know that, and all the recruits that want to come to Minnesota have that realistic expectation that we can do that.”
How recruiting changes with those floors and ceilings
“It’s a great question. I think you adapt. I don’t think you change the way you recruit. I think you do adapt though.
I am who I am, right? I feel like I’m a better coach than the first time I walked in here. But I know what we’re looking for, right? This is about selection and fit. It always will be.
If we can elevate the skill set and the talent of the right selection and fit, that’s what we’re doing. And we’re having the ability to get kids maybe we weren’t getting before. That might have fit us, but maybe they’d pick a school because it was a logo school or it was gonna provide them an opportunity for X, Y, and Z. We’re doing things with players and producing NFL talent at a record level here.
And we’re really proud of that. Not only that, we’re producing orthopedic surgeons and teachers and social workers, and that’s what I’m proudest of the most. Now, you’re never sitting there saying that you rest on your laurels, but that’s what I mean about we’ll always be this life program.
But I think we can continue to elevate the type of player we get, but the type of person we’re getting, that’s what I’m looking for, that selection and that fit. But if we can go and cast a little bit bigger net and get better skill sets, then of course we’re gonna keep doing that. And I think our staff’s done a great job of that.
Garrett Chernoff, our GM, and Marcus Hendrickson, our director of player personnel, do an unbelievable job of the evaluation funnel. We are still a developmental program and always will be. Close to 80% of our roster are all high school players. That’s unheard of in this generation of college athletics.
But we’re proud of that developmental piece. So we’re looking for the people who still wanna be developed, right? Transactions are a piece of that, but we still want that transformational player. We’re just elevating the type of skill sets we’re getting.”
How Minnesota can improve in one-possession games
“Yeah, I mean, everybody wants to win one possession games. They wanna start fast. They wanna win the middle eight and accelerate in the middle and they wanna finish the game. So everybody wants the same thing. But it comes down to situational football.
We’ve gotta be really good in two minutes, we gotta be really good in four minutes. There were times when we were six and one, we got the ball with six minutes to go. I mean, we never gave the ball back.
There were times where maybe we were really good in four minutes years ago, but we just couldn’t catch up with two minutes. Last year, I thought we were really good in two minutes, but I don’t necessarily think we were as good in four minutes. So you wanna show your team how games are won and lost. Most games in college football are lost less, that’s how you want it. You didn’t screw it up as much as the other team screwed it up. We wanna make sure we teach our teams how to win games.
The ball, tackling, explosive plays. Tied to that with 78% is everything else when it comes to situational football. How well do we do in the green zone? How do we do in four point plays when it’s third down inside the green zone, where it’s a field goal versus a touchdown? Three field goals are nine points, three touchdowns are 21 points. That’s a two possession swing.
So you’re going back and you’re not focusing on other teams because this is the 2025 team. But you’re using examples from the past to show this is why this team was really good, and this is why this team wasn’t very good. This is why we were so close in this year, and this is why we broke through in that year. So I think the why is really important. Everybody wants to win, but when you’re going through training camp, are you intentional about winning situational football? Working on situational football, creating those situations for your players, creating that added pressure constantly.
We went over to the stadium for a scrimmage the other day and it rained. We had a delay, we started, had a delay, a lightning delay. It was great, and went right into the locker room. Did our whole breakdown of what it would be to go through that delay. And we came out and we were okay, we were okay. We weren’t great, but we had to be very transparent and honest because we came back out after an hour and a half and got back after it. So, I necessarily didn’t like the start we had, but they learned from that. You’re constantly creating those real life in game, in season situations that are priceless. And that is a coach, you do everything to prepare your team and then we have to go out there and execute.”
What stands out about Buffalo
“Maybe ask me next week, we just started them. So, but I know Pete Lembo, I’ve coached against Pete Lembo in the Mid-American conference, he’s a wonderful coach, really good football coach. He’s got a great special teams mind, his teams are always really sound.”
On the Gophers’ ability to get up to speed this fall camp
“Yeah, I think what we did more than we’ve ever done, I think in a training camp, when one, this team’s been able to handle more than any team I’ve had in nine years. They were able to handle way more install, way faster at a way higher rate.
So the credit belongs to the players, but we’ve done so many overtime situations, final plays, last play of the game, two-point plays, more than we ever have. I mean, overtime scrimmages too, now you’re talking about having fun. I mean, you divide the team in two, and we’ve already been through a two-hour practice. And now we’re gonna go have a little overtime scrimmage. I mean, how fun is that? And then divide the team and go back and forth, and tell you that this team loves to compete. And anytime a team loves to compete, when they can become a really smart team and learn situations. And know how to apply yourself in those situations, you have a chance.”
On what Danny Collins showed him to have confidence in him becoming the defensive coordinator
“I’d probably say about six years ago. And I’m not saying that he was ready to be hired six years ago. I just knew that his loyalty, Danny Collins’s loyalty is second to none. This young man has been with me for 13 years, and I’ve watched him sleep in a janitorial closet, because there’s no other place to stay. I’ve watched him come in with so many different student coaches saying, I want a coach.
And I love when people say that, like, yeah, yeah, yeah. There’s 20 of you, I bet you one of them will come out here. It’s like Destination X, that new movie, or Amazing Race. Because I think everybody says they want to, but the demand of the job is, I think people just think it’s football, that’s just a tiny piece of it. When you’re dealing with 108 young people, and then watch his dedication as a GA and a QC, and bop around to every position, and start to master that at Western Michigan. And then he got to Minnesota, and same thing, GA, QC.
And then when he got a safety job, it was a no-brainer to hire him, because he was ready. He knew the defense better than anybody else. He watched it with multiple coordinators, he coached every position. He coached in multiple bowl games. When other coaches had left, coached every position on defense. We had a talk about five, six years ago, and he looked me in the eye in my office here in Minnesota and said, you know I could be your defense coordinator right now.
And I said, Danny, I know you could be, and I know you will be one day. But leave that to me about when it’s actually time to do that. And it’s interesting, back probably two years ago, maybe I would have hired him. But we didn’t have such a good year on defense. And I felt like going outside the program was the best thing for the program. Getting some fresh blood in there from some fresh points of view. Same type of system, person that’s been in the system, but brings somebody from the outside. And that’s when we brought Corey Heatherman in. And then Corey did such a good job, Miami, Florida hired him.
And I wanted it to stay close to the same, but we’re not the same. And so Danny was the easy choice. I mean, that was a no-brainer for me, and he’s earned it.”
On Koi Perich staying grounded despite a lot of attention and recognition
“I think you do your best. But I’m not saying that it’s hard to keep him grounded, cause he keeps himself humbled and grounded. Koi has a very unique mindset. And I mean that in the best way, because I haven’t met many people like him. Where his response mechanisms are, he can flush it so quickly. He can focus so intensely on something. Off the field, he is so focused on what he wants for the rest of his life.
When you’re talking about what he does, I mean, players make money. I mean, he’s so focused on what he wants to do. He has such intentionality with his money. And he’s already thinking 10, 20, 30 years down the road. He’s already thinking about the sports facility he wants to open and then franchise. He’s just an elite thinker.
And I give him a lot of credit, because for being so young and having this kind of hit you so fast, I think there’s a lot of people who are not mature enough to handle that. He is a very mature individual, who is very comfortable being himself. One, the maturity factor, has to, want to, but also the comfort in being yourself. And I think that’s what makes him a really good football player. It makes him a great person, because he is who he is. And he believes what he believes in, and he has reasons why. He doesn’t just do it because somebody told him. He’s a very inquisitive kid. He loves being coached. That’s one thing I love about Koi. Koi’s got no problem being coached hard. And the greatest players I’ve ever coached, they love being coached hard. They want you to be their coach.
That is what a coach does, a stage coach, takes people from where they are to where they want to be. He wants that. And I think that’s a lot of fun, because there’s a lot of people coaching him right now. There are special teams coaches, there’s assistant wide receiver coach, wide receiver coach, I’m coaching him, Danny’s coaching him. I mean, Coach Monroe’s coaching him, everybody’s coaching him. And he gives everybody the attention that they deserve, and vice versa.”
On opening the season against a quality opponent
“I think any team, I mean, look at our past schedule as we’ve opened. I think you gotta come out of the gate smoking no matter what. I think this is, you got a 12 game championship season, and you break it down into one game championship seasons. And that’s what we’ve always done. It’s a one game championship focus.
They’re really talented, I do know that. They got the majority of their players back on defense, about half of their players back on offense. Anytime you’re a nine win team, it doesn’t matter what league you’re in, you’re a dangerous football team, especially when you have everybody coming back.
And then you combine that with, I think, a fabulous football coach, whose football IQ is off the charts. Been around a lot of amazing coaches, been a head coach, special teams coordinator. I mean, I know they’ll be ready to play, but that’s not my focus. My focus is our guys, making sure we’re ready to play our best football that we can possibly play for three and a half hours at Huntington Bank Stadium on August 28th.”
