Fleck: Minnesota football ‘a sleeping giant’
First-year Minnesota football coach P.J. Fleck broke down what it will take to make the Golden Gophers contenders during an interview with USA TODAY Sports — and it includes loud music and spraying water at his players.
“It’s the ability to focus,” Fleck said. “I think that everything we do is to not let the circumstance dictate your behavior. Whether that’s crowd noise — using certain songs that are actually about pressure — or whether that’s squirting people with water bottles.
“We do bets on shaving each other’s heads when they miss a field goal or miss a throw or don’t punt it inside the 20. But it’s constantly putting them in highpressure situations.”
Fleck departed Western Michigan after a 13-1 season that included a Cotton Bowl berth.
He has taken over a Minnesota program that has made five consecutive bowl appearances but hasn’t won a conference title since 1967.
“I think this is a sleeping giant of college football,” Fleck said. “I really believe that. We haven’t won a championship in 50 years, but that’s the opportunity to become a legend.”
Fleck, whose energy and rahrah locker room speeches are almost as well-known as what he accomplished at Western Michigan, has made a very public push to raise the Golden Gophers’ profile. He’s the subject of a four-part documentary, Being P.J. Fleck, that premiered on ESPNU last week.
In a USA TODAY Sports story
“We do everything we can here not to let other people’s opinion motivate us. We have to be motivated by what we want to become internally. That’s what we are going to do.”
Minnesota coach P.J. Fleck, on USA TODAY Sports’ prediction the team would finish 4-8 and place fifth in the Big Ten’s West Division
projecting records for each Football Bowl Subdivision school, Minnesota was predicted to finish with a 4-8 record and place fifth in the Big Ten’s West Division.
“We do everything we can here not to let other people’s opinion motivate us,” Fleck said about the prediction.
“We have to be motivated by what we want to become internally. That’s what we are going to do.”