Fleck: 'Minnesota closer to CFP than people think'

P.J. Fleck explains why he believes Minnesota is closer to reaching the College Football Playoff than many think, while discussing quarterback Drake Lindsey, the Gophers' culture and expectations for 2026.

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Before we get into football, I wanna hear about your summer.

I heard you- had some fun stuff happen this summer.

Yeah, I mean, we, we, we enjoy our few weeks that we get.

Yeah.

You know, I think it's really important for the family time, and then also Heather and I cele- celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary.

Yes.

So went to Croatia.

Yeah.

Which was pretty cool.

So, you know, Game of Thrones, you know, in Dubrovnik.

Yeah.

And then we kinda worked our way up to, to Venice, Italy, and then came on back.

Yeah.

But really special trip.

Okay, now I also heard something about a restaurant in Paris- that you went back in the day- Yeah right?

With your wife, and then- Yeah made a return trip.

So a long time ago we went to Paris when you we couldn't really afford Paris.

Right.

But I wanted to wine and dine her.

We were dating, and I thought I was really cool.

So, one of our donors was a billionaire.

Very different between him and I when I was starting out as a head coach.

And, he said, "You need to go to this restaurant called Le Cinq in the Four Seasons in Paris."

And I was like, "Okay, well, how bad could it be?"

Right.

So we go.

Anyway, long story short, in Paris the men get the menus with the prices, but the women do not get the prices on their menu.

I literally take this menu and I'm like, "I don't What?"

Because we already had a few glasses of champagne that came around on a cart, which we both thought were free.

Right.

And, they weren't.

And then I looked at the menu.

I was like, "Listen, we can't afford anything in this restaurant, but we're not gonna leave."

Heather was like, "Do you want me to break out in a rash?

You want me to fake something?"

I'm like- "No, we'll go.

But you gotta get the cheese plate, and I'm gonna get this little tiny piece of meat, and then I promise you one day when we can afford this, we'll come back."

Yeah.

So- There you go years later, we went to Le Cinq in the Four Seasons and had an amazing meal.

That's awesome.

It was Truly, we got everything.

That's awesome.

It was good.

That's great.

Well, you mentioned 10-year anniversary.

Also, you're getting ready for your 10th season at Minnesota.

I mean, looking back, what, what accomplishments are you most proud of or, or think about the most?

Well, I got into this because I love to take people from where they are to where they dream of being.

That's what a stagecoach/coach does.

Right?

Horse and buggy or a football coach, we all take people to where they wanna be and where they dream of.

So I think just watching those 10 years of players come through the University of Minnesota, you sit down with them as high school recruits, as sophomores or juniors, and they tell you what they want to accomplish, and then you watch it happen, and you watch Antoine Winfield Jr.

Win a Super Bowl or Tyler Johnson win a Super Bowl, and, and play in the Pro Bowl, and do all the things that happened.

Nick Cowher winning a Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks.

But it's also the guys who are in their careers now too, whether they're doctors, lawyers- Right in the business aspect.

I love that aspect.

The football side of it, I mean, we're 7 and 0 in bowl games, and- Yeah and that's pretty much every single year we've been there besides COVID, which we only played in seven games and did not go to a bowl, and then also our year one.

So very proud of that because I think that shows that guys love football in your program.

Yeah.

A lot of people opt out for bowl games- Right and not play in bowl games, and then boycott bowl games, or use it as a, a bargaining chip.

Our guys can't wait.

Now, I'm not saying we don't have people that say, "I'm gonna go to the NFL a little early- Right and I'm not gonna play in that game," but that creates the freshmen and the young guys an opportunity to go play and start and get the experience for next year.

So I just love that we've accomplished that.

I think the seven ranked wins is really big.

You were a part of, one of those- Yeah.

With Penn State at, at our place in '19, and we've had three of those in the last two years, and we're very proud of those things.

And then the GPA I'm really proud of.

Yeah.

Every single semester we've been there has been above a 3.0- Yeah for 20 semesters plus, so very proud of those things.

Yeah.

In April you made a statement about you think Minnesota is capable of making it to the College Football Playoff.

What, what gives you the confidence and the motivation to, to stay, say that?

It's a great question, Todd, 'cause I mean, if you look at it, we're not that far.

You look at w- if, if, if, if the College Football Playoff expands to what it's going to go expand into, and let's say it's 24 teams, multiple years we'd be right in it because a nine-win Big 10 team with the nine conference games, you're gonna be in that.

Right.

Now, you might be in the, that, you know, that, that la- 17 through 24 and you gotta play your way in.

I get all that.

What a great opportunity.

Right.

But I think it's so It's closer than what people think, and what closes that gap is you gotta win one possession games with the nine conference games.

You gotta win your non-conference, and then you gotta find a way to win some of those barn burners you're gonna be in in the Big 10 in the middle of the season or late in the season.

But if you can do that, you can win those one-possession games, you can do a lot of special things.

So, if you marry the seasons that we've had that is, are special, we're, we're winning the ball, we're winning explosive plays, we're winning tackling battles, but we're also under the pressure- Yeah of the situation closing out those one-possession games.

Yeah.

When you were first hired, you were one of the youngest coaches ever to be a, a head coach, major college coach.

Now you're one of the most tenured guys in the Big I mean, how does that happen?

Oh my gosh.

A lot of hair ago.

You know?

You know, it's amazing.

There's Head coaches are a direct reflection of their assistant coaches and their players.

That's it.

And I'm fortunate enough to work with the best athletic director in America.

We're the longest tenured AD and head coach combination in the country.

Mm-hmm.

And I think with that alignment and that cultural sustainability from the top down has allowed us to have success at the University of Minnesota, because if you're constantly changing that, you're relearning something, there's really nothing that sticks unless somebody stays there for a long time.

I truly believe at University of Minnesota, whether it was me or someone else, having a coach who really wants to be there and stay there a long time is the key to Minnesota's success.

And I think that that, hopefully, as you start to see over the next however many years, and we have 10 to 15 years of college football playoff data, maybe that's one of the key statistics to it as we keep moving forward.

But I've learned a lot- Yeah and that's the one thing.

In 10 years you learn a lot.

On We call it the road to 500.

It's a long road and you learn a lot, that's for sure.

Yeah.

Last season, your team, you were undefeated at home.

Talk about just the advantage of playing at home, what your crowd, what your fan base is like for your program.

I just think it's a sneaky, sneaky hard place to play.

Yeah.

I think people just maybe have a perception of how good could Minnesota's crowd be?

They say it's close to 60,000.

But you let Minnesotans- tailgate all day, and you have a night game in Minneapolis.

And you allow those fans, who a lot of them are Vikings fans and Twins fans and Lynx fans and, Wolves fans, I mean, you allow them the whole day to get after it- Yeah they create a heck of an environment at Huntington Bank Stadium.

And we're very blessed to have many, many sellouts and, to bring that type of consistency to the University of Minnesota's football program.

But our student body, doesn't get enough credit.

And, they are there every single week, week in, week out, and I can't thank them enough.

But I just, I think it's just a sneaky, hard place to play.

Yeah.

Now, what we should've told our team is we're playing home games every single game.

Yeah.

'Cause we lost all of them on the road.

And, we should've tricked them somehow, some way, but maybe this year we can get that done.

You, all coaches look for ways to motivate their teams, things to, to point to.

This off-season, you used the Artemis II mission a- as a way of communicating to your team.

What, take us through that a little bit.

What, what was the point of that?

I just think motivation, you have to be v- very intentional about it, and it has to keep changing as the, the, the society changes.

You have to find cultural ways that an 18 to 22-year-old young person is gonna relate to, and then teach the lifetime lesson.

You can't teach the lifetime lesson with somebody that you and I would know.

Right.

You've gotta do it somewhere with current events and things that are going on.

So if we wanna go to the CFP at Minnesota, it's gonna be like going to the Moon.

In fact, going around the Moon, and then coming back.

So what better way to actually show Artemis II that it can be done?

It's hard, but why are we gonna do it?

Because it's there.

As John F. Kennedy said, it's there, so why not do it?

But time's running out, and that's where the hourglass comes from.

So I think you're constantly finding ways to, to teach those lessons in cultural ways, but also anything they walk by in our building reminds them of that.

They look at a T-shirt, it reminds them of that.

So you've gotta be able to feel it, touch it, hear it, experience it, see it, and I think that's a job of a head coach is to create that motivation from within.

Well, one of your guys, and I had a chance to see him, spend a little time with him at the Manning Passing Academy a couple months ago.

But Drake Lindsey- Yeah started as a freshman, really good year last year.

What, what do you expect out of him this season?

Yeah, I think you know this.

I think teams only go as far as their quarterback will take them.

I think anybody on defense, special teams, or offense would probably say that.

In this game, it doesn't mean it's everything, but it's really, really important.

And I think playing him as a freshman was, in a great investment for us.

We knew there was gonna be some bumps and bruises and some hard times going through that, but I think he's way better in the pocket.

I think as a young quarterback, as you know, sometimes that B-gap blitzer who's not picked up, but the back's got him, it's hard to trust the back's actually gonna get him.

Right.

And you can feel that piece, and you'll escape a clean pocket when you didn't need to.

And then that creates the second play, which maybe we weren't as good of, last year.

His accuracy has gotten better.

His body has, is completely different than it was last year.

In fact, his catapult said the other day in our summer workouts he ran 20.6 miles an hour.

So now he's in my office telling me he's dual threat.

Which he's not, but he's telling me he is.

But I just think when you look at the leadership piece of him and what he's learned and how he's grown up- Yeah that, that is gonna pay dividends to the rest of our football team.

Yeah.

Finally, a lot of great traditions in college football, rivalry games.

You have one end of the year with Wisconsin, Paul Bunyan's Axe, right?

Yeah.

You've won four of the last five.

How important is that game to you, to your program, to the fan base of the Minnesota Gophers?

It's in, it, it's this important.

The day I got the job, I land in Minneapolis, and everyone I talked to, that's only thing they said was, "We don't care what you do.

You just have to beat Wisconsin."

And that was it.

Shook my hand, said good luck, and then walked away.

That was every single person I met.

And to be at a point where we had lost 15 straight, before we got here, to now be at a point where we win a four out of five with the Axe, brings a lot of pride to our state.

And that's what we do it for.

I mean, Minnesota's not my alma mater.

We do it for our players.

It's their alma mater.

We do it for our fans.

We do it for our student body.

We do it for our band.

We do it for our community and our state.

But I think that pride's there with that game, and it means so much.

And I think it goes back to how we built our team.

We built our team with a base of a lot of Minnesotans who understand how important that rivalry is, and truly, truly live and die by that moment, and wanted that as a family to bring that Axe back to Minnesota.

So I think it's everything, and it's what makes college football great.

Yeah.

The pageantry.

And in fact, we have all four rivalry trophies this year.

One every three games is a ri- is playing for a trophy.

Yeah.

So it should be really exciting.

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