Everything P.J. Fleck said on Monday — Purdue week
Minnesota head coach P.J. Fleck met with the media on Monday ahead of Minnesota’s matchup with the Purdue Boilermakers. Here’s everything Fleck had to say on Monday.
OPENING STATEMENT
Fleck: All right, good morning, everybody. Thanks for being here. First and foremost, just want to say happy homecoming to everybody out there.
We have over 200 alums — 201. Rodney Smith is in, so that’s good. Brosmer said he’s coming, but he’s actually in our facility right now, so I don’t know if that surprises anybody. But really excited.
It’s homecoming week. Not only that — again, the 200-plus alums that are coming back, which is fantastic. The first year we started doing that, we had 40. Now we have over 200 that are RSVPing, which is really cool.
Also celebrating the 1960 National Championship team, and really excited to have Bobby Bell — highlighting Bobby Bell as well, part of that team. So, lots to be excited about.
Last week, obviously disappointed in the outcome and the result, but when I went back and watched the film, it’s exactly what I thought it was — we got beat. There’s so much good in that film. It gets covered up by the score, but there’s a lot of good to pull from that game.
You know me — I get paid to tell the truth to our football team. That’s exactly what I told them. I said, you have to swallow a pill that we got beat by a better football team who played really well that day.
But we played really well in certain areas as well. We said we couldn’t turn the ball over — we did not turn the ball over. So, as good as they are defensively, we didn’t give them the ball. I think that was a credit to our offense and our preparation.
We only had two penalties. We were talking about playing a really, really good football team — we needed our technique and fundamentals to be on point to give us a chance to win that football game. And most of the time, when your technique and fundamentals are flawed, you have a lot of penalties. We did not have that.
And they didn’t either, nor did they turn the ball over. So if we were hoping Ohio State wasn’t going to play well, that wasn’t going to be the key to victory. They’re the number one team in the country for a reason. They’re going to play well, and they are really good players. And they played really well against us.
We only gave up one sack. So as we continue to shuffle around the O-line, finding the right five in the right spot, still only gave up one sack to maybe the best front seven that we’ll play all year, respectively. But everybody that we’re going to face is going to be pretty good.
We said we had to have speed, simplicity, and boldness — and we were going to have to be bold. I mean, that fourth and one, you’re going to have to be bold. You’re going to have to do certain things as a head coach to back up what you said throughout the week. Then we got to go out and execute it.
So, there’s a lot of really good. Garrett brought this up to me, and I thought it was a great example: it’s like a midterm exam. Andy, you remember your midterms? You get the result back, and maybe it wasn’t what you wanted in terms of the result. But you knew a lot of the questions, and you knew a lot of the answers — just maybe you didn’t get them right. And the teacher had a tough grading scale.
So, you got to go back to it. You got the second half of the year to get that grade up. But when you measure yourself against the best team in the country and the players that we just played against, I liked a lot of things that were jumping out on the film.
But it really backed up what I said — they beat us. And like I said, it wasn’t like we went in there and just beat ourselves — blown coverage this, blown coverage that. I mean, we had X on an O, and their X was just better than our O, or their O was better than our X on that particular day. And got to give them credit.
That’s why they’re the national champs. That’s why they’re the number one team in the country. They’re not perfect. We’re not perfect. But when I went back with the fine-tooth comb, there was a lot of good that came out of that game.
So, our players were great yesterday and ready to roll this week. Got a really good Purdue team coming in here that’s playing better and better every single week, and Coach Odom’s doing a great job.
Q: When you look at the nature of the loss, did you find players feeling the need to lick their wounds or wanting to turn the page?
Fleck: Well, I think like anything, you come in on a Sunday and you don’t know whether we won or lost — you really don’t. It’s all about the response, the response, the response.
Control is for amateurs — you had a chance to control the outcome for three hours. Once that’s done, you can’t live in the coulda, woulda, shouldas. You have to be able to turn the page.
You have to be able to look at what we can do — how can we get better? That’s what this whole program’s about. That’s what “Row the Boat” is all about. Put your oar back in the water and go.
There’s nothing you can do about the past or that game anymore. You had your three-hour opportunity; now you have to turn the page and find a way to get better.
One thing I love about our football team is when they come in on Sundays, they’re ready to respond. They’re tremendous in the film sessions. They do really well when we go out on the field.
I thought they responded the way you’d want them to respond — which I know sounds redundant; every coach says that. But I really think they do. I’d tell you if we didn’t. I’d tell you if we had a hard week or weren’t where we needed to be.
We had a great week of preparation. I thought the response was absolutely key. It’s critical for a head coach to make sure that message gets across, and how you handle Sundays as a staff and head coach is everything.
That’s part of the job — what’s your message going to be, and what do you want the mood to be? You get to control that. Sometimes it’s a tough conversation. Sometimes you’re the one reminding them how good they are. There’s a balance to all of it.
Q: With alumni weekend, maybe a good time to ask you about where you’re at with NIL and encouraging fans to get involved?
Fleck: Yeah, I mean, Dave, that’s a great question — and Andy brought some of that up in a different way after the Ohio State game.
In-season isn’t really the time to talk about NIL, in my opinion. It just isn’t. Obviously, any support our fans or local businesses want to give, or Fortune 500 companies we have here — our players can benefit from those opportunities.
We’re always an open-door policy. We’d love to have those conversations, especially for our players. But that’s the ever-changing landscape of college athletics — whether it’s the salary cap, NIL, NIL Go, or all these other factors. I don’t think the average fan fully understands that yet.
We’re going to do everything we can to build the best roster possible here at the University of Minnesota, because that’s our best chance to succeed at the highest level. And we’ll continue to do that.
Especially with homecoming and people coming back, I think it’s a great chance for them to educate themselves on where college football and college athletics stand — not just football, but all sports.
There are a lot of great commercials out there that help promote the changes with the NCAA, NIL, and the portal — even political ads referencing Congress and all that. You’re starting to see educational pieces explaining how the entire system is changing.
So, great question, Dave — just probably for a different day. But yes, any support our former players or alumni want to give, we can absolutely help make those connections.
Q: What is the change on the offensive line to start to get more knockback in the run game?
Fleck: It’s a pretty big wall we were going against in that front seven, and we knew the challenge. I thought Fame ran the ball really hard. When Darius was in there, he did a really good job.
But we were down 14–3 so fast that we had to get away from the ground game a little bit. Then it was 21–3, and at that point, you’ve got to throw the ball.
By the fourth quarter, we got back to the run a bit to shorten the game. Our guys are coming off the ball — it’s not like we’re having a bunch of busts. We’ve played some really good teams and put ourselves in some tough situations early that have forced us away from the run.
I like what our guys are doing. Fame’s running hard. Darius did a good job when he got in. Cam ran hard too. We only averaged 2.7 yards a carry, but that wasn’t about effort or scheme — they’re just very good against the run.
We have to continue to give our players what they can handle, scheme them up for success, and break some tackles.
Q: You talked about finding the right five up front. Were you referring to the group that finished the game?
Fleck: Yeah. We take the data. We feel like we have eight guys who can really play. But maybe the fifth guy hasn’t separated from the sixth or seventh.
We’re always watching practice, evaluating. Sometimes someone gets banged up and you’ve got to adjust. We knew the kind of personnel we were facing.
We’ve got tackle bodies — guys who can play tackle or guard. For this matchup, we needed to be stout on the edges. That might not always be the case going forward, but we’ll always put the best five on the field.
If we have to rotate, we’ll rotate. It’s a semi-good problem to have, because we do have depth — we just need more consistency from a few guys, and it’s our job as coaches to get them there.
Q: What did you think of your special teams play?
Fleck: It was good in a lot of areas, but a little inconsistent in others. The fake they ran — that throwback — was a really good play, really well-designed. Mason Carrier made a heck of a play on that.
He was running 21.6 miles an hour at 235 pounds across the field to make that stop — huge “how play” for him and for us.
We’ve just got to be more consistent overall. We can’t go one-for-two every week on field goals — we have to put points on the board.
I thought our protection was really good on field goals, and our field-goal block unit is getting good penetration.
You love this stuff, Dave — if you watch our last field goal block of the game, it looks like the first quarter. That’s how I can tell how hard a team plays. You watch field-goal block at the end of a blowout — that says a lot about culture and character.
Our guys were still selling out like it was to win the game. That’s why I say so much good gets covered up by the score and opponent.
In the return game, we didn’t have many opportunities. We fair caught all kickoffs — that’s by design. You don’t want to start at the 15- or 20-yard line against Ohio State; the stats are against you. You get one first down, Tom’s good enough to flip the field — and we did.
That directly tied to giving them long fields, which was part of our plan.
Q: You mentioned being bold around that 14–3 mark. Was that your call on fourth down?
Fleck: Yeah, that’s my call. Going forward on fourth-and-one — that wasn’t a hard call for me. Especially with what we talked about all week: being bold.
I don’t think it changes the outcome, but maybe it makes it closer if we get it. We needed to win time of possession, and we didn’t. We had the ball for seven minutes on the opening drive — we needed more of that.
The fourth-and-one was an easy call. There was one earlier, fourth-and-three, but that was too early. The margin wasn’t big enough yet.
Q: Fame has been impressive running with more authority. What’s his potential as he gains more experience?
Fleck: The sky’s the limit for Fame. The one thing he was missing was playing time. He was hurt, missed spring ball, didn’t get much live work.
Now you’re seeing huge improvement every week — big chunks at a time. Eventually that margin of improvement gets smaller, but right now, he’s making leaps.
He’s got really good contact balance, he’s picking his knees up better, breaking more tackles, and seeing runs develop more clearly. He’s understanding the scheme better.
He’s not a finished product, but he’s getting better every time he touches the ball.
Q: Missed tackles have been an issue lately. What needs to change there?
Fleck: We’ve got to tackle better — plain and simple. That’s fundamentals. We work on it every day.
The only choice you have is to get better at what you’re not good at. We know what we need to fix.
It’s not like our guys aren’t willing — they are. But we’ve played some guys who break tackles at a high level. We’ve got to swarm tackle better, use our tackling circuits more effectively.
That’s all about instincts. You train behavior, that becomes habit, habit becomes instinct — and instincts show up on game day.
I’m not going to say we’re bad tacklers. We struggle at times, but that’s different. We faced a tough team to tackle last week. We’ll get better.
Q: Given the management of Darius, are you setting him up for a bigger workload this weekend?
Fleck: Yeah, I think so. I’d confidently say that.
I don’t control that fully — that’s with our medical staff — but I’d assume so. Managing that load during the game was all based on how it was going.
Our medical staff did a great job. Darius felt really good afterward, and that’s a positive sign.
Q: What are your early impressions of Purdue?
Fleck: Everything runs through Brown, the quarterback, on offense — and that’s a compliment. They’ve got four receivers who can really go, good tight ends, and Coach Odom’s done a great job in one year with his additions.
Their offensive line is consistent in blocking for #45 and the other backs. We’ve seen him a long time — he’ll jump over you, run you over, and he’s slippery. He’s run for over 3,500 yards — that’s hard to do in the Big Ten.
The quarterback is a creator. He’s caught a touchdown, ran for one, thrown one. He’s slippery in the pocket, spreads you out sideline-to-sideline and goal line-to-goal line. They’re explosive and can score quickly.
Defensively, their front seven has a lot of new faces but plays well — a lot of movement and stunts. The secondary is long, one safety is very active and runs the show.
You can see their identity already. I’ve got a lot of respect for Coach Odom. His team plays really hard for him. They’ve faced some really good opponents and scored a lot of points. We’ll have to play really good football this weekend and keep getting better every week.
Q: Talking about tackling, could you make practice more physical this week?
Fleck: No, I think our practices are already pretty physical. I don’t think turning up physicality mid-season is smart, given depth.
I’d rather have good players who need to get better at tackling than have no players left. You’ve got to balance that.
We’ve worked on fundamentals and tackling circuits all offseason, spring, and camp. There’s always a reason — not an excuse — but a reason. We just have to find a way to tackle better.
Our guys are good tacklers, but last week we played a really tough team to tackle. They’ll get better. I wouldn’t call us a bad tackling team — just one that struggles at times.
We’re a physical, up-tempo team in practice as it is, and we’ll stay consistent with that.
Stay Tuned
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