There was some question as to P.J. Fleck’s level of superiority over Tim Brewster, the previous crazed promoter hired to coach the Gophers, when Fleck inherited a 9-4 football team from 2016 and turned it into an outfit that went 5-7 and was a 2-7 also-ran in the Big Ten the next season.
P.J. Fleck is a much better coach than Tim Brewster, but when it comes to gibberish ...
The Gophers beat Bowling Green in the Quick Lane Bowl last season ... but so what?
The Minnesota Star Tribune
July 30, 2024 at 11:32PM
The issue of Fleck vs. Brewster was settled strongly in Fleck’s favor in his third season when the Gophers went 11-2, defeated Auburn in the Outback Bowl and wound up rated No. 10 in the final Associated Press poll.
Coach Brew didn’t make it through his fourth season in 2010. Since then, he has done TV work, and has been an assistant at Mississippi State, Florida State, Texas A&M, North Carolina, Florida, Jackson State, Colorado and now landing with the Charlotte 49ers, as they try to battle back from a 2-6 finish in the American Athletic Conference in 2023.
Meantime, Fleck is starting Season 8 with the Gophers, and was proclaiming his love for Minnesota at last week’s Big Ten preview sessions, which went on for three days in Indianapolis because this is now an 18-team jumble of colleges.
What did come through to those of us following from a distance was this:
Philip John Fleck Jr. is much more long-lasting and successful than Brewster, yet he remains just as full of authentic football gibberish as was Coach Brew.
The Big Ten West was an all-time worst in 2023, which is saying something, and the Gophers went 2-4 in the division and 3-6 in the conference. What was supposed to be a rugged schedule wound up ranked 36th nationally, thanks to the woeful West.
The season’s one notable victory came in the 12-10 bore-fest at Iowa City, and in weird fashion, when a replay official looking to discover if an Iowa punt returner had stepped out of bounds empowered himself to opine that Iowa’s Cooper DeJean’s motions toward blockers constituted a fair catch.
Fleck said postgame that his team previously had been called for fair catches with such signals. You remember those … anyone, anyone?
Oh, well. Those Hawkeyes were so rotten offensively it would have been a disgrace to have them finish 6-0 in the West and 8-1 in the conference — prior to the 26-0 loss to Michigan in the Big Ten title game.
Here’s what was ridiculous last week in Indy: The Fleckinator trying to sugarcoat his putrid seventh season at Minnesota by talking up a 30-24 win over Bowling Green in the Quick Lane Bowl in Detroit.
His spiel:
“The narrative around our place now is, ‘What are you going to do after the disappointing year?’ We just won a bowl game. There are people here just trying to get a bowl game [after] decades, and we won our fifth in a row …
“When [winning a bowl game] becomes disappointing, we’re doing our job even better, because there will be ebbs and flows.”
You Brew-style slinger of nonsense, P.J. you.
There were 41 bowl games following the 2023 season, making it 30% more difficult for FBS teams to miss a bowl game than make one. And the Gophs were the last ones in, based on strong tutoring. The consensus appeal of those bowl matchups found online put Bowling Green-Minnesota at No. 41.
Yes, but before P.J., there were some decades without the glory of a bowl game.
Did Bernie Bierman ever go to a bowl game? Five times voted national champs, but nary a bowl game, and don’t give the Fleck fanatics that phony excuse that the Big Ten didn’t allow its team to do so in those years.
Did Murray Warmath ever go to a bowl game? OK, he did twice, back-to-back Rose Bowls but way back following the 1960 and ‘61 seasons — and one lousy win in Pasadena in his 18 seasons.
Philip John? He already is a Quick Lane Bowl coaching legend with two majestic wins in Detroit in a mere seven Gophers seasons.
We’re so lucky to have this bowl-busting head coach for a mere $6.7 million minimum for this season. If you don’t believe that, just listen to him boast about beating Bowling Green — not only another bowl game win; also revenge for a loss as 30½-point favorites over the Falcons in Minneapolis in September 2021.
And yes, I had to mention that, because P.J. and friends’ casual attempts to give him a lofty place in Gophers football coaching history drive me nuts.
OK, he’s been better than Brew, I will give him that.
Brennan Rigsby, a transfer from Oregon, has a 40-inch vertical and can shoot from long range. The Gophers are counting on him now with Mike Mitchell Jr., injured.
