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Row the damn boat


JimmyHoffa

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  • 2 weeks later...

That's awesome. The producers of the video should've turned the music down so we could hear what little brother was saying, but that's a minor quibble. 

Fleck is 3-0. His enthusiasm is infectious. He genuinely cares about his players and understands the importance of building a culture where the players care about each other. Just the setup about sharing the stories about their tattoos helps to build that culture. And then to turn it into a memorable moment with the awarding of a scholarship. It's no surprise why players want to play for him. 

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23 hours ago, kopp0e said:

This could become a "Cinderella" story of the year, if the Gophers sweep the B1G west/ face Ohio State in the B1G conference championship game...

Let's tap the brakes here.  It's a very young team and they're going to lose games- maybe even as many as they win.  There's no doubt that he has them going in the right direction though. 

I couldn't deal with his schtick every day, but one of the cool things he has going is that,  because he is so unabashedly transparent about who is,  he doesn't have to waste time with recruits who aren't quite sure if he and his "culture" are for them.  You love him or you hate him.  You are drawn by it or repulsed by it.  No in between. That allows him to fill his draft classes very quickly.

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23 hours ago, kopp0e said:

This could become a "Cinderella" story of the year, if the Gophers sweep the B1G west/ face Ohio State in the B1G conference championship game...

What the fuck are you talking about. They're about to go 1-3 over their next 4 or at the very best 2-2. After that, Northwestern is never an easy out and @Wisky is probably an L too. 

This is at best an 8-4 team playing a dogshit schedule and they are probably more like 7-5 or 6-6. 

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29 minutes ago, TexasHooch said:

Let's tap the brakes here.  It's a very young team and they're going to lose games- maybe even as many as they win.  There's no doubt that he has them going in the right direction though. 

I couldn't deal with his schtick every day, but one of the cool things he has going is that,  because he is so unabashedly transparent about who is,  he doesn't have to waste time with recruits who aren't quite sure if he and his "culture" are for them.  You love him or you hate him.  You are drawn by it or repulsed by it.  No in between. That allows him to fill his draft classes very quickly.

It's a solid no nonsense approach to rebuilding a program that I have loosely followed since watching a game or two of Gopher hockey on tv...

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29 minutes ago, ztejas said:

What the fuck are you talking about. They're about to go 1-3 over their next 4 or at the very best 2-2. After that, Northwestern is never an easy out and @Wisky is probably an L too. 

This is at best an 8-4 team playing a dogshit schedule and they are probably more like 7-5 or 6-6. 

The point of "Cinderella" is when a program wins against teams that are not expected... (Note the key words "if" & "could") thus the title is warranted...

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5 minutes ago, kopp0e said:

The point of "Cinderella" is when a program wins against teams that are not expected... (Note the key words "if" & "could") thus the title is warranted...

"If" and "Could" tend to mean that the event might happen. Minnesota finishing with one loss and playing in the B10 title game is not going to happen. 

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1 minute ago, ztejas said:

"If" and "Could" tend to mean that the event might happen. Minnesota finishing with one loss and playing in the B10 title game is not going to happen. 

Well let's look at the B1G west:

Purdue- lost to E. Michigan
Nebraska- lost to Troy
Northwestern- lost to Akron
Maryland- lost to Temple
Illinois- lost to USF
Indiana- is a "winnable" contest
Iowa- is a "winnable" contest

The toughest games for the Gophers are: Wisconsin & Ohio State (both losses), Minnesota went 3-0 in non-con, so 8-4, to 10-2 is possible... "Cinderella"
 

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  • 2 months later...
On 9/20/2018 at 5:06 PM, kopp0e said:

Well let's look at the B1G west:

Purdue- lost to E. Michigan
Nebraska- lost to Troy
Northwestern- lost to Akron
Maryland- lost to Temple
Illinois- lost to USF
Indiana- is a "winnable" contest
Iowa- is a "winnable" contest

The toughest games for the Gophers are: Wisconsin & Ohio State (both losses), Minnesota went 3-0 in non-con, so 8-4, to 10-2 is possible... "Cinderella"
 

Great take Kopp0e. 6-6 just like I told you.

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On 11/24/2018 at 6:23 PM, WhatTheBuck said:

Biggest win in Fleck's career. That's huge. 

 

Hands down. He is a little too "used car salesmen" for me but he's a damn fine coach. They absolutely took Wisconsin's nuts and beat them at their own game in the 2nd half by just running it down their throat. Not only had they not won in Madison since 94 they had lost 14 in a row to them. That win alone buys him at least another 3 to 4 years in Minny if he wants to stay there. 

 

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1 hour ago, orange dream said:

I can't recall the details.   Did the rights to RTB and all that that entails transfer to Fleck personally or to Minny?

Nice win for the Gophas

The U of M bought all the Row the Boat IP from WMU, and it has been a central theme in the last two years of marketing.

Fleck is still a loudmouthed used car salesman, but this time he's actually got something to sell. 

I was down at the Bierman building Saturday night when the Axe came back to Minneapolis. It was pretty neat. And yes, Paul Bunyan's Axe is every bit as big as it looks.

 

 

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The big thing is they beat Wisconsin by doing their best Wisconsin imitation. They had a single drive that took nine minutes off the game cock, and were running their one short back right into the middle of the defense.

 

The Wisconsin quarterbacks looked just awful on any passing downs, worse than they usually do. The Horny Brook guy looked like he should have stayed on the bench he couldn't have been much worse. When the Badgers were playing from behind in the second half they just could not do anything in the passing game.

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On November 25, 2018 at 1:03 PM, BigOrange1 said:

happy for fleck.  i remember watching a 4 part documentary type thing about him before the beginning of his first season at minnesota and one of the alumni told him that he didn't care if he went 1-11 every year so long as the 1 win was against wisconsin.  

That mini-series was called Being PJ Fleck. In one episode there was a scene where he was meeting with a room full of alumni/boosters and he brought up the question someone asked him about if he could go 11-1 with only a loss to Wisconsin or 1-11 with the only win being against Wisconsin and, before he could finish, the audience erupted in favor of beating Wisconsin. He joked about how nice it was that he could have job security with a one win season. That's a longstanding attitude among Buckeye fans regarding Michigan. I didn't know that Minnesota fans felt that strongly about the Wisconsin rivalry. That win should get him a raise and a contract extension, and help with recruiting.

I take issue with people comparing him to a used car salesman. Used car salesman are dishonest and untrustworthy. There's nothing dishonest about Fleck. What you see is what you get. He's the embodiment of the maxim, "They don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." He has a philosophy of using football to better the lives of young men and he applies it consistently.

He has a lot of sayings and catchphrases that can come across as a little sappy but they're all consistent with his philosophy. Consider the acronym F.A.M.I.L.Y. which stands for "Forget about me, I love you." Yeah, it's kind of cheesy, but it expresses the essence of team and placing their best interests before your own. He talks about making the young men in his charge elite in every facet of their lives, "athletically, academically, and spiritually" and he means it. I'll be surprised if he's not there for all of his players for the rest of their lives regardless of where life takes them. 

He's over-the-top energetic and that turns some people off. He's relentlessly positive and kind of sappy and cheesy and we made fun of him when he first came out with that Row The Boat gimmick at WMU, and proceeded to go 1-11. Then we learned he came up with that "gimmick" in response to his young son's tragic death as a way to keep moving. And we watched him go from 1-11 to 12-0 in four years and win a championship. 

In the Being PJ Fleck series he talked about how one of his mentors, I can't recall which one, told him to be himself. He's nailed that. He's quirky and different and not for every player. But he's charting his own course. I can see why his players would run through a wall for him.

And I'd trust him to sell me a used car without cheating me.

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Hmm...
I wonder if there would be any interest of PJ Fleck, to coach at Texas Tech... I can see the coaches show now #Fleck@Tech...
(I think Minnesota could actually be a better destination job than that of Texas Tech, all things being equal)...
The Golden Gophers are a state flagship, the Red Raiders have access to elite talent, within the Lone Star State; so it is debatable...

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29 minutes ago, Al_4_ISU said:

If they can knock off Nebraska and Iowa next year, that would be nice.

 

Christ, they might even get 40,000 people (actual Gopher fans - not Wisconsin or Iowa fans) to a game at this pace.

Minnesota is a "sleeping giant" of the B1G west... I would like to see the program do well, (as I have never witnessed that)...

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