What did Minnesota head coach P.J. Fleck say during time at the podium during Big Ten Media Days? Gophers Nation provides the full transcript below.

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"Good morning everybody, exciting to be back here. Would like to thank commissioner Petitti for his amazing leadership. He's really done an amazing job in a short period of time. From us head coaches, we want to say thank you to him for his leadership.

Media days always kicks off the season, so excited to be back here. I never take that for granted as a head football coach. I never take that for granted with how fluid our profession is. I want to thank my wife Heather and our kids, Gavin, Carter, Paisley, and Harper for their unwavering support, as always. We spend a lot of time away from our families and raise other people's kids as well.

I want to thank President Ettinger, who we had our interim president for two years. Did a tremendous job of leading our institution and everything that goes along with that. I want to thank our board of regents and I want to welcome our new president whose coming to us by the way of University of Michigan, Rebecca Cunningham, who enters her first year as our university president. Obviously, I want to thank our fans. I think we have the best fans in college football. They do a great job of supporting us and our student athletes especially as your getting into this NIL world.

There's one person I really want to thank and that's our athletic director Mark Coyle. I've worked for the best boss in the business. We have a very special relationship, I think that's well documented. In fact, our eight years now, going on eight years, is the longest tenured head coach, A.D. relationship in the Big Ten. Which I think again shows the fluidity of our profession as the head coach and as the athletic director.

But this is what I meant when I said in my open introductory press conferences. We're going to bring cultural sustainability back to Minnesota. You at all the successful coaches that have been at Minnesota a long period of time and they all had sustainability at Minnesota over a long period of time with the same culture. Coyle and I We are doing everything that we can to keep that sustainability in place.

With Coyle and I, seven years being together, it's pretty amazing. That's 50 wins, we've had 16 NFL Draft picks, had nine academic All-Americans, we have a 3.21 cumulative gpa, have had six All-Americans, and we're 5-0 in bowl games in our seven years. We're one of only 13 teams that have had someone drafted in the first and second round in the last five NFL Drafts; Antoine Winfield Jr, Rashod Bateman, Boye Mafe, John Michael Schmitz, and Tyler Nubin. Again, I say that because that's a credit to Mark Coyle's leadership and direction of our athletic department and our football program because we both truly love Minnesota and I think in 2024, its okay to love where you're at. It's okay to love Minnesota. It's okay to love the position you're in and I think we share that. We're actually building a house, it's finally finishing after 2.5 years and we're moving in, in two weeks which is great timing for a football coach to be moving his house.

But we both believe in the student-athlete experience and I love that working with Mark Coyle. As we're transitioning into this new world of college football, I just wanted to say something about our program. We're a transformational program; academically, athletically, socially, spiritually, the whole life program. But our world has changed in this transactional world; with NIL, with the portal, with salary caps, with conference expansion, new TV deals but really the university experience is still there. I think a lot of people think the transactional piece, now we all have to change to just the transactional piece. We don't believe in that. We believe in having the transactional piece to allow our student athletes to benefit but you still get this transformational life program and I think that's really important to talk about. We're still educators, we're still teachers, and we're still mentors and that will never go away as we continue to move forward. Fit is more important now than it's ever been. We talking about recruiting. We just had the highest ranked recruited class we've had at Minnesota and it wasn't because we were the highest bidder. It's because we had the right fit for our program.

I think Michigan proved this last year. Team, team, team. You build the best team, you got a chance to win. It's one thing to have the transaction but then you have to transform them into the best team they possibly could be. I feel like we've done a pretty good job of that in the selection world. I'm not for everybody, I think I've said that numerous times. I don't want to be for everybody and I don't think anybody is for everybody but if you can find the right people that fit you in the new world of college athletics and football, you can have a lot of excited.

I'm really, really excited about where our team is at, I think they've worked really, really hard. I'm excited about the future of college football and our football team in 2024. So, 2024 football team, the reason I love them so much is they love ball. This team loves football and with all the transactional pieces, do you still love football? This team truly does. We've focused on one word in the offseason for us and that was competition. I know that's pretty generic and cliche but we broke it down into three aspects because I think to be the ultimate competitor you need to understand how to compete.

One, you need to compete within yourself. The within piece is critical. This is winter conditioning, this is summer conditioning, this is you versus you. You've got to understand this is how you grow the most.

Two, you've got to compete with, each other. You're on the same team. Spring ball, training camp. We're on the same team, we're not beating each other and that makes you even more competitive and those two things with and within gets you ready to compete against the teams you're going to face here in the season and I think our team is getting ready to place against the teams as we continue to compete with and within ourselves and our football team.

We've hired two new coordinators in the offseason and I'd go through our new coaching hires but everybody''s a coach now. We would take forever and that would take all my time talking about all the people we've hired. The two new coordinators, we have Corey Hetherman come to us the way of Rutgers. I think it's documented with Coach Schiano and I, the respect I have for him and what he's done. Joe Harasymiak used to be on our staff, over at Rutgers now, so we kept that hire within the family. Corey was instant fit though. You talk about a football coach. This guy eats, sleeps, and breathes football. Really intelligent and our players really fell in love with him the minute he got in there and he was all ball and he's done a great job so far.

Then our second hire in the coordinating aspect was Bob Ligashesky as our special teams coordinator. Bob and I go back to Tampa Bay when we both coached in the NFL. He was our special teams coordinator, I was the wide receivers coach for the Buccaneers. He just brings a wealth of knowledge. College, NFL, experience and really, really excited to have him. The guy is above 60, I'll just say that, still runs 10 miles a day. I mean his energy is endless.

When we transition a little bit to our players. We have added 13 transfers, 25 high school players joining us. WE had the highest-ranked recruiting class since we have been there. I think the biggest most glaring statistic, we have 16 of 17 eligible returning starters back this year. I think that's a credit to our culture, our sustainability, and guys wanting to be at the University of Minnesota.

Guys like Daniel Jackson whose second team All-Big Ten wide receiver. Aireontae Ersery, whose our starting left tackle whose getting a lot more notoriety, one of the notoriety is he's a top 25 player in the EA Sports College Football game. Not only that but if you take him and you move him to tight end, it's a hack. He's a 99, there's some information for you. Also Quinn Carroll, one our offensive lineman whose Big Ten and then on the defensive side of the ball Jah Joyner led us with 7.5 sacks last year, he hopes to double that, he's really had a tremendous offseason. Justin Walley, all he does at corner is seem to make plays in rivalry games than Danny Striggow, our rush end who is also All-Big Ten.

But we brought four guys with us and all these guys are all elite young men. We talk to our players all the time about being a better person than you are a player because you're make yourself a better player if you're a better person and these guys truly , truly represent that. We brought Max Brosmer, our quarterback whose a transfer from New Hampshire, Darius Taylor, our running back from Detroit, Michigan, Cody Lindenberg, our linebacker from Anoka, Minnesota, and then our kicker Dragan Kesich, he's really our social media liaison. That's how we were able to bring four. We have three and Dragan is our social media liaison. But the best interview you'll ever have is do an interview with Dragan Kesich, it will get some licks, I promise.

Starting to talk about Max real quick. Max was a 2023 Walter Peyton finalist, quarterback at New Hampshire. Did a tremendous job there. Our quarterback situation was different than a lot of others. We were going to take a portal quarterback to come in and start and play right away. Someone had to come in and engulf the program, fit the culture, want to be there for all the right reasons. I think a lot of people want that but when you're in that role its really difficult when you get there and who really wants that. He's a meticulous why seeker and he's a very curious, curious individual and anytime you have a curious leader you can accomplish a lot. The slogan, the quote, he's a coach on the field gets thrown around a lot but he truly is. This guy, e can be a doctor, a surgeon, and he probably will be. But he could be a phenomenal coach if he decides that one day after he's done playing.

Darius Taylor, our running back, who I think arguably had one of the better seasons at running back but he just didn't play a lot. I think in the offseason, Darius spent a lot of time getting to know his body, working with our sports science team, our nutritionist, our dieticians, our strength staff, our trainers to make sure he has a real healthy 2024 and do possibly everything he can. We connected him with some other people in the transfer portal at the running back position and JoJo Nubin. You talk about a terrific person who took generational trauma and made that positive change, that's what Darius is all about.

Cody Lindenberg, I think one of the best linebackers in the Big Ten. Again, we were hit with the injury bug last year and only played in a few games last year. But he's the heartbeat of our defense, he's everything to our defense. He's the voice. He's the reason. He gets everybody aligned, we're really excited to have a healthy Cody Lindenberg in 2024.

And last but not least, Dragan Kesich, he's our social media liaison. He's the reigning Big Ten Kicker of the Year. That's a great accomplishment, we were talking about that at St. Elmo's last night. However, if you have the Big Ten Kicker of the Year, you're probably not very good on offense that's just part of it because you're kicking way too many field goals and I think that's where we were at last year. But he's got a huge leg and I hope you all get to spend just a little bit with him because he's a very, very, very unique individual. Really very excited for the 2024 season, got a great group of kids here, again, we're very excited about our transformation program and with that we're open it up to questions.

That's something we talked about at the beginning when we got here. That we wanted to really recruit Minnesota at a really high level and I think we've done that. Last year, we had the No. 1 player in the state of Minnesota, the No. 1 player in the state of Wisconsin, and the No. 1 player in the state of North Dakota all committed to the Gophers. Not only that but if you look two years out right now, in 2026, the No. 1 and No. 2 player in the state of Minnesota are already committed to Minnesota. So we take that really seriously and I think to do that you have to be there a long time. I think when you talk about what we're most proud of is, the relationship we've formed within our walls. We talk about the type of players that continue to come back to us through spring and be around that takes time. Before we got there, I think we had seven head coaches in 14 or 15 years and so it's really hard to attach to something when you're an alum. Now our guys come back, their there all the time, they want to be around spring practice, they come there and work out in the summer. I'm just really proud of the progress our guys are making and then watching them accomplish their dreams.

Just not in the National Football League, I'll give you a name; Preston Jelen whose in med school right now working to be an orthopedic surgeon. I could talk about the lawyers, or the doctors, or the teachers that we're producing out of our program and that's still a university setting. This is still education, and teaching and transformation. We brought the transactional piece and rightfully so, for our student athletes and that's awesome. But that transformational piece, that's what we're most proud of, we're truly transforming lives as teachers, educators, and mentors.

"I think for us they're incredibly competitive, it can goes back to that word. If we're talking schematically, consistency is the truest measure of performance. I think last year we weren't very consistent in anything and when you're talking on the offensive side of the ball. So the whole focus was to be incredibly consistent on both sides of the ball in what we did and all the fundamentals and techniques. We go back to our pass game, I know its been well documented in our state, we didn't have much of a pass game last year.

When you're going through a season, you're listening to what you're players can do. You're listening with your eyes, your ears, you're watching what you can do. If you're not adapting to what they're showing you, you're not going to be very successful. So what we had to do was adapt to new people at new positions. What we were good at, what we weren't. Maybe what we were good in training camp when we lost some people, we weren't very good after that in certain areas.

But even the pass game if you go back. Daniel Jackson, he might be one of the, we've had four of the top 10 receivers in the University of Minnesota. So when we're talking about the pass game, we want that to be way better. We want to be way more balanced but we also have to have the personnel to do that which I think we have. We're deeper at wide out, we're deeper at tight end, we've got basically our whole line coming back, we've got a really good quarterback whose really consistent and like I've said we've got a running back room that's really deep. If we can stay healthy, we can be balanced, and be consistent on our daily basis on the offensive side of the ball.

The special teams one, we'd love to be able to create more explosive plays and that's part of hiring Bob Ligashesky. Then on defense, Corey Hetherman, I know he's fired up to make the defense his own. But this identity is they do love football, that is an identity and we want them to be incredibly consistent and competitive and if we do that, we'll have a really good ball team in 2024."

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