Everything that P.J. Fleck after Minnesota's 20-17 win over New Mexico
Following Minnesota’s 20-17 win over New Mexico in the Rate Bowl, Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck met with the media to discuss the Gophers’ seventh straight bowl win under his leadership and the program’s ninth overall.
OPENING STATEMENT
FLECK: “Alright, first and foremost, I just want to thank the Rate Bowl. I want to thank Eric and Judy, all the Yellow Jackets, our host Jim, he was absolutely unbelievable.
What a world-class environment they create for a whole week. Been to a lot of bowl games, it’s really, really special. They do it above and beyond, and it’s been well-reported of why I feel that way.
Bowl games are about the people. Some people really, really care and create an elite moment in memory for all of our players and our staff, and our staff’s families over the holidays, and they knock it out of the park. Here we are in Diamondbacks Baseball Stadium in Chase Field, they do knock it out of the park.
So, just want to thank them first and foremost. Second, just a congratulations to New Mexico. Coach Jack has a heck of a ball club.
The team he put together, how scrappy and hard they play, they’re very tough to figure out defense. They throw a lot of looks at you, they move, they stunt everywhere, they play incredibly hard. This is one of the hotter teams in the country when you look at what they’ve done to a lot of people.
Tied for the Mountain West Championship, when you look at them, we knew this was going to be a really, really difficult opponent. And then we didn’t execute for a lot of different reasons. Partially them, partially us.
Didn’t play our best football game. Didn’t play as complimentary as we wanted to play going into the game. However, found a way to be 1-0.
That was the whole mission. These guys, we don’t believe in momentum. It didn’t matter if the kickoff return went back, didn’t matter.
These guys just kept rowing the boat. We’ve been saying that forever. And everybody says, well, what do you think it is? It’s rowing the boat.
I mean, it’s not that hard to figure out. It’s rowing the boat. The resolve, the resiliency, the cardiac gophers, whatever people want to call us.
It’s about these players. It’s about their resolve, the resiliency, the fight, the scrap they have. I’m so proud to be their coach.
And what they’ve done and what they continue to do is very, very difficult to do. And I don’t, again, I think we kind of just look at the CFP and that’s it. But when you look at how they won games with a lot of things that have happened with us this year and to finish the year with eight wins, another bowl championship for the seventh time in a row, night time as a program, seventh under us.
I think that’s a huge feather in their cap. So love coaching these young players, these people. We got amazing, amazing people inside our organization.
And I know Coach Eck feels the same way. They got a heck of a culture, too. But I’m just proud of our culture tonight because it showed on a big stage.”
Q: You said before the game it was almost a preview of 2026. What do you think that season looks like now?
FLECK: “Well, one, it’s a celebration of 25.
We celebrate our seniors. Whether guys played in the game, did play in the game, have NFL aspirations, guys are coming back. This was a top to bottom, pretty young team in a lot of key positions.
And we’ve done a really good job of retaining our roster. And I’m not saying we’ve done a really good job. It’s these guys believing in what we’re doing and how we’re doing it.
There’s a lot of transparency and open conversations within our program. We have nine guys playing on teams on Sunday from last year’s team. We’ll talk about that enough.
A lot of people go right straight down. This team’s another bowl champion, eight wins, losing that many NFL guys and replenishing and being able to play a lot of young players that you’re willing to do that with, with freshmen. The two guys that enter the game on offense are freshmen.
So, I mean, I think the future is really, really bright for Gopher football and it should be. And I’ve always been that head coach that never runs away from expectations. And we’ll continue to let these guys rest a little bit and then set our expectations really high in 26.
But the expectations have to be elite in the process. I think sometimes we are a little more result oriented as a team this year that really stayed to the process. But resolve and resiliency within the game.
Absolutely. This was one of the best teams I’ve ever coached with that.”
Q: Where does Anthony Smith’s performance rank to P.J?
FLECK: ““Yeah, I mean, Anthony would be the first one to tell you it’s about the team defense first. He can’t do it alone, right? But that was one of the best defensive performances I’ve watched a single individual have.
Would it be any better? We got to work on the catching piece with the balls in the air. We’ll work those wide receiver drills for him in the offseason. But what a game, you know.
But when you watch Anthony work and see what type of person Anthony is, Anthony’s a really, really good person with a huge heart and soul. He’s serving and giving. He cares about people.
Just what a great teammate. And it’s no surprise that he had the game he had. But it takes all 11.
But he really got after it. You know, one thing I’ll tell you about Anthony is that he’s really coachable. Like, it’s really hard with elite players to coach them every single day because our job is not to make them just comfortable.
Our job every day is to get them to be uncomfortable. Well, most human beings don’t want to be uncomfortable, especially really good human beings who are good football players. It’s hard to get guys to be uncomfortable.
He has no problem doing it. You can sit him down and watch certain clips of what he has to continue to do better. And he’s very transparent and honest with himself and comes to work every single day to get better.
And that’s very, very difficult to find, I think, in 2025 going into 2026 in this kind of NIL portal world where everybody just wants to be told how good they are and what they’re worth.
I think that’s true. You better have a really strong culture to be able to continue to coach young people. And I think we do. And we’ve got the right kids who want to be coached. And I’ll stand tall on that comment for sure.”
Q: P.J., can you walk us through the play call of the last touchdown?
FLECK: “Yeah, I mean, it’s a double post.
Drake did a really good job. We’re double calling everything because of the amount of looks they give us and the type of fronts they’re giving, the type of movement, disguises. They’re throwing everything at us.
They did a really good job putting pressure on our quarterback with the stunts and blitzes and constantly coming after us. But what a throw.
My angle looked like there was a low blow in front of it, right? And then all of a sudden Jalen cuts him off and dies.
But, you know, one thing about Drake that I think makes elite quarterbacks elite quarterbacks is they throw people open and they trust people to be where they’re going to be.
That is a very rare trait to have. Most times, young quarterbacks, oh, he’s open, throw it to him.
Drake throws people open.
The best throw of the day was the first touchdown to Jalen because that’s not just coaching.
We talk all the time about shaping the football, the appropriate throw, right? The appropriate ball, the advanceable ball.
But to throw the ball as high as he did before Jalen’s even close to being out of his break point and then allowing Jalen to look back for that ball.
He looked straight up, and that’s what he’s taught. Great fundamentals and technique.
Just those are big-time throws. Play calls are play calls, but you’ve got to still be able to execute them.
And for the youth to be executing at that type of level is inspiring for the future.
But I’ve said this before. He’s a very, very special player. He’s a better person.
He’s becoming an elite leader of not just the offense but the team. And you never feel you’re out of it with five.
Like you never feel you’re out of it.
And I can say that in front of him because he can handle it. He can handle a compliment. And I’m really proud of what he did.
I mean, he won eight games as a freshman quarterback. That’s very difficult to do when not many people are playing freshman quarterbacks. They’re going to buy the old ones.
And I’m just thankful he’s coming back.”
Q: P.J, can you talk about the kickoff return for a touchdown you allowed?
“He’d like it a little bit more to the left a little bit, but he brought it out, gave him a lot of credit. We’ve got to cover better. It’s simple.
Whether you’re in the Big Ten or you’re playing in bowl games, everybody’s going to have really good players.
The first kick was a little bit more of what we wanted, kind of kicking it away from him a little bit because he’s a dynamic player.
But kicked it deep, good hang time.
We just got beat at the four position and opened up a pretty big hole, as you can see. So we’ve got to fix that for sure.”
