Everything that P.J. Fleck said after Minnesota football's 66-0 win over NSU

On Saturday afternoon, the Minnesota Golden Gophers program defeated the Northwestern State Demons on Saturday afternoon at Huntington Bank Stadium, 66-0. Here’s what Minnesota football head coach P.J. Fleck had to say after the win.

Opening Statement

First and foremost, I thought the officials made the right call to end the game. Dusty Clements, one of our athletic directors, was on the phone with the Big Ten, and Mark Coyle and Garrett Chernoff communicated really well throughout the process.

We knew it was a possibility, and Coach Blaine and I both agreed it was the right time to call it — six minutes left, ball at the minus-one yard line, the game already out of hand. The priority was keeping our fans and players safe with the storm coming in.

We told our players we needed to play our style of football for 60 minutes. We got 54 today, so we’ll find a way this week to get those last six back. But I was proud of how our guys handled business.

I have a lot of respect for what Coach Blaine is building at Northwestern State. That’s a tough job. I’ve been there — I was 1–11 as a head coach, then 1–3 or 1–4 the next year. Those are hard times. But they’ve already got a win this season, and I think they’ll get more. They play really hard.

For us, we knew it was about focusing on ourselves — start fast, accelerate in the middle, finish strong. I thought our players accomplished that today

We had a lot of things that we needed to improve on from last week to this week on all three phases and I thought we did that, especially when the ones were in there, we played 76 players tonight, mission accomplished.

And nine different people scored a touchdown. Ten different people carried the ball and nine guys had a catch. And I would say that’s a well diversified team, when you’re talking about what you wanted to accomplish out of today.

The first half we knew I wanted to make the first half longer. And that’s why I called all three of my timeouts the way I did, especially into the wind. We were gonna score and we were gonna score often and score fast and then get to a lot of players that were needed to bring the floor of this program up.

The deeper we are, the better we’re gonna be for this ten game stretch of all power four football, because now football begins. And that’s no disrespect to the first two opponents, but you all know what I’m talking about, power four football starts now. And a lot of people got the experience, people are gonna get banged up, people are gonna get hurt here and there, that’s football.

You can never run away from that, it’s gonna happen, but that’s why you have depth, that’s why you recruit, and that’s why you go out there and play 76 players like we did today, so we can continue to connect this football team. Play a really good team out west with Cal on a 9:45 central kickoff that we’ve got to start getting ready for ASAP, and we will. But I was very pleased with our performance tonight.

Some late things that I didn’t like with two penalties at the very end and then not being able to get the ball in the end zone from the two or the one yard line, but there’s a lot of freshmen up front. There’s some tight ends, there’s two freshmen tailbacks. You can either know it or learn it by knowing or doing. They knew it, and then we didn’t do it. So now they get to know it, now they get to go do it next time, and that’s how they’re gonna grow.

So a lot of failing, a lot of growth, a lot of success, thought we started fast. And really, really proud of our football team tonight. So it became 1-0, that’s all it means, but I’m sure you have some questions. So we’ll open it up.”

In a game that got out of hand score-wise that early, how do you feel your team set its focus on the task at hand?

That was the whole story all week. We talked about the Mona Lisa painting, and that was our whole thing that we studied this week was Mona Lisa. And the story of how the Mona Lisa became famous. And then it took about ten years to paint. It’s imperfect, if I’m right, I think Leonardo da Vinci died before it was even finished, but it was imperfect.

So we were imperfect from week one, but we had to paint a different painting. And it was about the story of the first game that was gonna paint a different picture of the second game. And I think that we did that. And then we painted a very different picture on our execution side versus who we played.

It didn’t matter who we played. We were gonna have to play way better, and I thought our guys did that. So the response with our football team, 60 minutes of havoc defense, right? 60 minutes of starting fast, accelerating, and finishing strong on offense.

And special teams, we were gonna have to create a really good field position, which I thought we did. So again, a lot of really good things came from today. Again, this is a 1-0 football game. We’re gonna take it for what it’s worth, and then we’ll move on.

We saw you have a long conversation with Darius once he came out of the injury tent there during one of the TV timeouts. What can you tell us about that conversation?

It was a great conversation. I really love my players, and you hurt for the kid, and anybody who gets hurt. It’s not about, you don’t immediately go to like, what are we gonna do as a team? Because we have really good tailbacks. And you immediately feel for the person, because you know everything that that young person has been through, and what they invest in themselves, and how hard they work, and the time they spend in the training room, and to prevent those things.

But it’s football. It happens. It happened in the NFL game last night, or Thursday night. It happens in college football today. Injuries are part of our sport, and they always will be. For the test of time, they will always be that way.

You have to be able to respond to it, and that was my whole conversation with him. My whole conversation was just about, hey, now you gotta lead those young guys for right now. It doesn’t seem too bad, which is really good. So we got a really good positive diagnosis on that. So we’ll see how the week goes as he goes through it. But we weren’t gonna put him back in the game, that’s for sure.

Which did you like seeing a couple fundamentals shine through? You got Z with the fight the ball tackle, Mav pulling the ball out in a country situation for Mav with the scoop and score

“I loved how aggressive we were with the football when it was on the ground, when it was in the air, the swarming of the tackling, the second man strip. I mean, these guys, I mean, I told you, our defense is deep. Our defense can be creative, but they play with how. Like how, and that necktie mentality, always attacking, never full. Next play mentality, they’re a very close unit, very close.

And there’s this word we use this week, because we talk about multipliers, right? When you genuinely want somebody to have success, that’s our defense. And there’s a word called Mudita, and Mudita is what Brian Sheehan said. We have a Thursday afternoon, our Thursday morning coaches series. Where I let one of the coaches talk to the whole team and present something to the whole team. It’s a team meeting presented by one of the person on the staff, and I’ve done it for 13 years. To help develop my coaches into head coaches and give them the chance to be in front of the team.

He talked about this word Mudita, and Mudita is true joy. Finding true joy in somebody else having success, no envy, no selfishness, no greed, no of those human nature feelings. And that was his whole message. And I watched a whole sideline today do Mudita, they were Mudita. I’ve never heard of a word like that, I just said multiply. That’s the difference in intelligence between Brian Sheehan and me. Multiply and Mudita, very different, but I thought it was an amazing presentation.

And it’s fun when you have a message, you know us, we’re all about the message for the week, whatever that is, and go execute that. And that defense started fast, accelerated, and finished strong. The tackling convention was on display, whether it was biting the ball, wrapping, rolling, sweep the ankle, second man strip, breaking on the football.

We were very intentional about all of our techniques and fundamentals this week, because I thought we were good last week, but we weren’t really elite. And intentional about your back pedal, your break foot, drive foot, where your arms are with that, when to break on the ball, when not to break on the ball, when to break through the hip, when to go pick it off, and to watch the first play of the game. John Nestor, who has just worked so hard. He’s so competitive, he’s so determined. He’s such an amazing competitor and such a good kid. To see him do that, just like he had a few big plays last week. He’s gonna continue to get targeted and tacked like all corners do. And he’s responding really well right now, that was great to see.”

You mentioned you weren’t gonna send Darius back out there. If the score had been closer, do you think he would have been able to go back out there? And you also have an update on Jalen Logan-Redding, right?

Yeah, that wouldn’t have been my decision. That would have been the trainer’s decision. Jalen seems okay. Again, didn’t feel like putting him back in there. I mean, if you sit there and say if he had to play, JLR probably could have. But again, that’s not my decision either. At that point, you can take him out of the game. I mean, he got cut, I think, cut from behind or the side. I mean, you can’t prevent those types of things if that’s what was gonna happen and people are gonna do that. I mean, unfortunately, that one wasn’t called. But I mean, that’s football. So we’ll get him healthy, we’ll get him right.

I mean, Mike Sipniak and his staff do an amazing job. They got a game ball in there because our guys spent so much time in there. I mean, Dan Nicol, Mike Sipniak, Dan Nicol, our strength coach, and his staff, Mike Sipniak, our trainer, they spent so much time with our players. And our players truly invest in their bodies and themselves. And it’s a long year, so gotta get those guys healthy.

What does a game like this mean for Grant Washington, Harrison, Manuel, Matt Kingsbury, people like that?

Experience, nothing trumps experience. There’s nothing better than it. You can talk about it, you can say you know it. You gotta go do it, and you gotta keep doing it. It doesn’t matter who you do it against. You just gotta keep playing and you’ll continue to build confidence. Those guys that you just mentioned, I mean, even Xavier, Xavier got in there tonight, that was really good for him, that experience.

So that’s all gonna help our football team this year. And that’s also about the investment as we continue to go through with that cultural sustainability for years to come, even with our quarterback position. But again, I promise you this, we look at every single rep like it’s a national championship rep. There is no such thing as mop-up time at the University of Minnesota. And if you think that, watch the TV telecast of people getting coached, being up 66 points, and it’s like we’re down 66 points. We are gonna coach our football team to get better from the start to the end.

Every time we get our hands on them in practice, that’s what a development program does. And this isn’t about watching, monitoring, and observing. This is about coaching. And there’s so many things that we’re gonna learn from that we didn’t even do well to, even the sky punt. We gotta be better in the sky punt. We gotta understand that situation and where that ball can’t go. You can know it, you can talk about it, you can say you know it, you gotta go do it. And those are the things that we’ll continue to get better at

How’d you feel like Drake advanced from game one to game two? And then also, Max Shikinjansky got some time in there. How did you feel like he handled that?

Yeah, I thought Drake had complete control, complete command of the offense. Pulled him out of there when we felt like it was appropriate. I thought, I don’t know what he was, eight of nine, pretty good numbers, right? And 139 yards, I mean, one touchdown, he did what he had to do. We knew we were gonna have to establish a run game. I think when you look at the run game pieces, I mean, he ran the ball 46 times, 258 yards. So, he did what he needed to do. I thought he had complete command of the game plan. He was really, really sharp, got us in the right plays, got us in the right run checks, thought he played really well.

I thought Max Shikinjansky, he won the number two job in training camp. And that’s just for his, you talk about a walk-on to a scholarship player, to now a backup quarterback. I thought he managed the team really, really well. Went in there, we had a false start right away, and that’s about being louder. If you ever come to practice and you watch me practice, I don’t know how many times I’m at the quarterbacks teaching them how to be louder. Well, obviously, knowing and doing. Now you got a chance to go do it in the game, and now you know exactly why you have to be louder. We’re gonna play in environments with 107,000 people coming up. So, but I thought he handled some really well.

We were able to get Dylan in there as well, get him some reps. So again, it’s all real football. And I told him that there’s no such thing as let’s just go in there and get this game over with, as you could tell. I’m still calling timeouts in the second half, get the ball back, stop the clock. That had nothing to do with the score. That has to do with about playing football. To get better at football, you have to play football. This team needs to keep playing football.

Tanner got to call the game today. How did you guys get to connect in? And how was it seeing your QB1 go to announcer?

Yeah, I mean, I didn’t get to see him in the booth today. Emma was down on the field with us today, doing the interviews and the sideline reporter who’s a former gopher and great golfer. And it’s good to see her career taken off. And but I got to meet with Tanner yesterday. So I always meet with the game day crews on Fridays, who’s gonna call the game. And I mean, Nadine, it was as professional as I’ve ever seen. Sitting down, I thought it was gonna be like, first of all, I didn’t know why I was in there. I was like, why don’t you guys just talk to Tanner? And you’ll get every answer about our question or our culture that you possibly could. You don’t need to talk to me. It was one of the most professional interviews I’ve ever done with a game day crew ever.

I mean, out of ESPN, Fox, Big Ten Network, some of the biggest names in all of college football. And Tanner did as good of a job as anybody. And really well thought out questions. And I didn’t get a chance to listen to the broadcast. I always do that tomorrow. So I’m looking forward to see what he has to say. He’s probably analyzing the head coach, a lot of decisions. I’m interested to see what he did that way. And we’ll have a few conversations about that, I’m sure, which will be great.

But I’m really proud of him. He is very, very eclectic. Whether it’s athletes in action, or whether it’s announcing, or whether it’s quarterback training. And he’s so eclectic in whatever he wants to do. He’s just such a dynamic person, an elite communicator. And he brings the best out of so many people. So I’m really happy for him. I hope it leads to a lot of other things, because I’m sure he did a tremendous job, because he was very, very prepared. Even got me on a few questions. I was like, man, I gotta think about these a little bit. So I thought he did a great job.

How do you assess your wide receiver play today? A lot of different people got the ball

Yeah, we wanted to spread it around, get a lot of people involved. I mean, it was out of hand so quickly. It wasn’t about, okay, let’s just get this guy some touches. It wasn’t worth it. It was more about, let’s do what we have to do to continue to score points. And we got a huge game next week, and I think it was really good. We played a lot of football, we got to play football, right? And we got to have a lot of success playing football. And then when we were on top, being able to keep playing really good football and not let the foot come off the gas, and I thought that was really good.

Hopefully that propels us into next week as we play a really good Cal team that plays today, and their quarterback’s really good. I mean, that freshman’s really good. We already know about them. Did a little preparation for him during the bye week already, which was really good, and we’ll get right into him tomorrow. So, I’m sorry, not the bye week, the long week that we had on Thursday going to now this Saturday. But we were able to work on him a little bit for about a day and a half already. So, that’s gonna be worth it, because we’re gonna need it. Going out to the West Coast trip, very unique schedule. I think Garrett Chernoff’s done a great job with our medical team, our sleep doctors, and all the things that we do. Put a great plan together, and our administration. I mean, what they’ve been able to do to make this trip really special for our players, and to make it really safe for our players, which is great. And hopefully, they can play their best football, 9:45 central, a week from today.