It's early on a Saturday evening, and P.J. Fleck has just finished his game day duties. His Gophers football team dispatched Western Illinois 62-10, and Fleck has completed his postgame recruiting meet-and-greets, his address to his team and his media responsibilities. Then he heads home.
Time to relax, right? Time to decompress after a 2-0 start and spend some quality time with his wife, Heather, before returning to the grind of preparing for this week's game against Colorado?
Uh, well. Kind of, sort of.
Fleck checks out the college football action on TV, catches up on games from earlier in the day and plots a way to use mistakes he's seen by other teams as examples for his squad to avoid. These can be critical lessons, especially for an undefeated team that has yet to make a crucial mistake.
"Heather gets mad at me,'' Fleck said, adding, "well, maybe not mad at me, but she's like: 'So, let me get this straight. All week you're at the office, coaching football. You're planning football, you play on Saturday. We have, you know, seven hours of just me and you. And then we watch more football.
" 'And not only do we watch football, you watch it, pacing like a coach, like you're actually in the game. And not only are you pacing, you're actually texting [video coordinator] Matt Childers parts from the game to show your team to learn from. I got that right?'
"I was like, 'Absolutely,' " Fleck said, laughing. "And she loves every minute. That's why we're a great couple.''
It's just one of the methods Fleck and his coaching staff use during Sunday meetings to teach their players to be aware of certain situations throughout a game. If, for example, a video clip of Texas A&M making a mistake against Appalachian State can prevent the Gophers from making a similar mistake in their next game, all the better.