We’re looking at the Golden Gophers of Minnesota. PJ Fleck is in his seventh year coaching the Gophers. He came from Western Michigan over in the MAC Conference. Is that redundant the Mid-Atlantic Conference conference? Anyway, shaky circumstances shaky acronym.
Minnesota should have a decent run this year, but anyway PJ Fleck is what I was talking about originally. I just like to jump around. Keep people on their toes. Keep you thinking what is he going to talk about next? Maybe football. Who knows?
Last year, 2022, Minnesota went nine and four. PJ Fleck’s best season was actually in 2019 with 11 wins. 2020 doesn’t count. 2021, not so good. 2022, nine and four. So, what are they going to do this season? I’m guessing they’re going to be about the same.
They’re going to be about a 9-3 team in the regular season. Their schedule starts in August. They’ve got an early game against Nebraska. I don’t see any reason why they shouldn’t win that one given Nebraska has a new coach.
Their non-conference games: Eastern Michigan. That’s typically a practice game for the Big Ten. North Carolina might give them a fit. The Tar Heels, that’s going to be a tough game. North Carolina has typically been a tougher team, especially for the Big Ten.
Northwestern; Pat Fitzgerald is still coaching Northwestern, so I don’t know that that one’s going anywhere other than, what I mean to say is it’s not going to go anywhere for Pat Fitzgerald. PJ Fleck should win that game.
After that we’ve got Louisiana, not much going on there. Then in October, Minnesota hits Michigan and I think that’s a definite loss for Minnesota. I think given we’re in year seven for PJ Fleck and the team has not progressed. Unless PJ Fleck makes some major changes Minnesota has peaked and now they’re fighting for any kind of dominance in the in the west. Now that you’ve got Luke Fickell at Wisconsin, Bielema bringing up Illinois. Minnesota might just end up being the number three team. They might be the Penn State of the West.
Fleck is 0-2 against Michigan so I think that’s a loss. At Iowa he’s 0-6 so I think that’s a loss. Michigan State, he’s one and one so he might win this year he might not. Illinois, he’s three and three, might win this year he might not. Against Purdue, Minnesota is four and two, so maybe that’s a win. PJ Fleck is 0-2 against Ohio State. 3-3 against Wisconsin.
So, PJ Fleck is either has no wins against a team or has matched the team. That pretty much sums up what PJ Fleck has done at Minnesota. They started off with a bang last season. Out of the gate they win multiple games in a row and we thought, “Hey, Minnesota is going to be good this year.” They won four in a row; New Mexico State, Western Illinois, Colorado and Michigan State. They were dominating and it looked like they were going to win the west and then you see they lost three in a row. They won three in a row, they lost one they won one.
They just couldn’t get that magic number they needed. They couldn’t win the games they needed to win and I think that’s why Minnesota is not going to change at all this year.
I think Minnesota is probably looking at, I want to say, a seven and five season with their key games being Iowa and Illinois. Those are their key games. They’re not going to beat Michigan so that one’s just off the table. If they can beat Iowa then I think they still have a shot at winning the West. If they beat Iowa then they need to beat Illinois. If they can’t beat Illinois the West is off the table. If they can beat Iowa and Illinois then I think we’ve got Minnesota back in the conversation for the west division.
Ohio State’s a loss.
Wisconsin and Purdue have new coaches although Wisconsin has Luke Fickell as a new coach; that’s a toss-up there because obviously Luke Fickell is no slouch. He didn’t do very well at Ohio State but then he was the interim coach just all of a sudden. He did fantastic at Cincinnati and Wisconsin is already a solid team with a good base. You bring in a coach like Luke Fickell and he’s going to do great things there. Not so great for PJ Fleck, but that’s where we stand.
I’m going to call Minnesota with a seven and five season for 2023.