Athlon Sports' released its annual highly antiicapted seires of anonymous coach qoutes ahead of the 2025 football season. Included among them was qoutes about the Minnestoa Golden Gophers and head coach P.J. Fleck.
So what did anyonymous coaches have to say about P.J. Fleck and the Gophers' heading into the 2025 season? Gophers Nation takes a look below.
“P.J. [Fleck] has built a consistent winner even though it’s not at an elite level," one coach told Athlon Sports. "So the good news is the bad news, depending on your expectations, because it is more of the same.”
It's hard to disagree with that sentiment from the anonymous coach. Under P.J. Fleck, the Gophers have achieved winning seasons in six of seven full seasons. In those six winning seasons, the Gophers have won 7, 11, 9, 9, 6, and 8 games. For the most part, the floor for the Gophers has been seven wins and bowl eligibility and there is certainly a strong list of programs that wouldn't mind being in that situation.
The anonymous coach does seem to insinuate, however, that that could be bad news for fans who have higher expectations for the program as Minnesota has won more than eight games in the regular season just once under Fleck.
“I think [Drake] Lindsey is the starting quarterback based on what we saw coming out of the spring game, and they need to establish the wide receiver group," another coach had to say.
“The offensive line lost a lot of experience, and they’re portaling a group together, so that could be a potential problem," one coach said.
Gophers Nation recently talked about the Minnesota offensive line coming out of the spring. The Gophers said goodbye this offseason to Aireonate Ersery, Quinn Carroll, Tyler Cooper, Phillip Daniels, and Martes Lewis. To help offset those losses, they added four players from the portal in UCF's Marcellus Marshall, Kentucky's Dylan Ray, Washington's Kahlee Tafai, and most recently Purdue's Jaden Bell.
There is certainly upside to the offensive line group and plenty of experience but how quickly will they all be able to gel? Not to mention that both Greg Johnson and Ashton Beers are switching positions.
“Jaxon [Howard] is a special talent on defense. He could be a real game-wrecker," one coach told Athlon.
Howard is set to enter his second season with the program after transferring home to Minnesota following one season with LSU. The former four-star prospect recorded nine tackles in 10 games last season but should be in line for a bigger role in 2025.
Finally, the last anonymous quote is like one that won't go over too well with most Gophers fans.
“It’s no secret Fleck wants to be at a high-end, title-contending program. This doesn’t look like a ’19 season on paper, but if they win nine games or so, he’ll be on the hunt to move.”
Minnesota fans are used to hearing the narrative of P.J. Fleck looking around elsewhere so this isn't anything necessarily new. That being said, if the Gophers have a strong 2025 campaign, his name should and will be popping up in coaching searches. If it wasn't, his agent wouldn't be doing his job.
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