Minnesota head coach P.J. Fleck met with the media on Sunday afternoon after the Gophers accepted a bid to the Duke's Mayo Bowl. In his press conference, he discussed quite a bit including the bowl game, the transfer portal, what the Gophers are looking for in the transfer portal at quarterback, and more.

First and foremost, just want to say how great of a day it is. One, Vikings are winning.

Two, got to see Casey O'Brien today. He came by the office, which was great for our players, sat in our staff room, sat in our team meeting, and I got a chance to spend some time with him. So I know that he says hi to all of our Gopher fans out there.

And then three, you know, you get invited to the Duke's Mayo Bowl in Charlotte. What a great opportunity for us to be able to be, you know, seven and five, be in a position to play a really good Virginia Tech team, coached by Coach Pry. And I know they had, you know, five, what was it, five one-score losses.

We talked about we had seven one-possession games, went three and four in those, and they had five one-score losses. So it's going to be a great, great atmosphere, just a great opportunity to be in another bowl game, and especially the Duke's Mayo Bowl. So just want to thank Danny Morrison and his staff for all that they did in selecting us.

Want to thank the people at Duke's Mayo, the Charlotte Sports Foundation as well, and then, you know, just everybody at Duke's Mayo. And, you know, we got one of these right here, so you can pick it up if you're a local cub. Just like that.

So, anyway, just want to say how thankful we are and appreciative, and it's a tremendous, tremendous opportunity for us to play another bowl game. And you know how we do this. It's a great reward for the 2024 season, but it's also an extension or a beginning of the 2025 season.

There's an extension of 24, there's a beginning of 25, and even the bowl prep. You know, we got 27, 28 days here until we play. Got a lot of work to do, and we're going to take advantage of every single one of those days, I promise you that.

So congratulations to Virginia Tech on being selected, and congratulations to our fans and our players and everybody involved in organization and administration. So with that, we'll open it up for questions

This is what college football is all about. You have a little bit of these quirks that come out based on who's sponsoring it and the traditions they have. And I think it's tremendous.If we're lucky enough and fortunate enough to win the football game, absolutely, make it double.

I tell you what, Corey Hetherman's a great man, and, you know, he loves the University of Minnesota. He loves the players he gets to coach. He loves his staff. I think that was very evident in the process.

You know, we've only known him in the organization for the last, you know, 10, 11 months, but I think he's made a huge impact on and off the field to our players and our staff. And, you know, I give credit to our administration, and, you know, it takes a lot of people, you know, to get to the end result, which is signing a contract, and thank his agent and Thayer Evans and what he was able to provide and just insight to a lot of different things. I mean, it's a unique process to go through it.

And you go, you know you're going to go through it every single year if you have really good coaches, which we do, and to credit to Corey and his staff for all they accomplished this year and what they were able to achieve. You know, those opportunities are going to come your way. And I want to support as many guys as we possibly can and keep guys here if they really want to be here and also promote them and encourage them if that's something they want to do in the future and go be a head coach and go to the NFL and do things like that.

But while you're waiting for all that, it's a great place to be and I'm really excited about the opportunity to keep Corey. I think that says a lot about our administration stepping forward and, you know, just says a lot about the connection in that room, too, that he really wants to be here because he's going to have a lot of opportunities as well, not only that one and this one and this one and that one, and he's got a lot more coming up, too, and just really thankful he's going to be our defensive coordinator here in 2025.

When the portal opens, you're always expecting people to go in it. I think you're also knowing who's going to go in it, who already said they were.I think that people announce it. Then there's some people who haven't announced it. I think that's just part of the ebb and flow of college football.

It's the ever-changing landscape. Well, you know, one thing that stays the same is everything changes. And you're ready for those. We're hot and heavy into the portal right now of how we're going to be able to fill some gaps. Obviously just signed a really good class of high school players that we're really excited about entering our program, excited by a lot of guys who have announced that they're staying, which I think these days it's a win in itself to retain your players, a lot of the top players that you have, which I think we're doing a really good job of. You know, you're creating value inside your organization, not just on the field, but off the field.

You know, this is a life program. It will be. It's a transformational program. Doesn't mean you can't have transactions within the transformational, but it's always going to be a transformational program for your entire life. Transactions are a part of that in college football right now. What I'm thankful we're not is just a transactional relationship and just a transactional program.

We're not. Transactions are a piece of that transformational program. And I'm really thankful that we have that and I think a lot of guys value that as well. But a lot of things are changing in college football and they have changed. I can't just say changing.

They've changed and you adapt to that change and you grow and you learn. And I'm just thankful for the guys that are staying, all the guys that have left.

I wish them all the best as they leave. You know, you want to see them get what they have earned, deserve, want, whatever you want to call it. And if leaving here is to get that, then so be it and support them 100%.

There's a lot of guys I have really good relationships with that are leaving and those are hard talks, but not in a bad way, just a hard talk. You know, a guy doesn't want to leave, but feels like he might not play. You got to be very transparent and honest with people of whether they're going to play or not.

Because if you care about them, you'll allow them to go play somewhere else if that's what they choose. You know, you're going to help them do that. You're going to be very transparent, might help your depth, but it doesn't help them get what they really, really want.

So I know I'm going off on a tangent a little bit about that, but you asked, and there's just a lot of relationships that you know you won't have for the next few years until they're done with college. Just like Bucky Irving, you can have a relationship with him when he went to Oregon, but right when he graduated, we have a great relationship again. And I just made sure they all knew that, that they have us for life and anything they needed from us, let us know.

But we'll also benefit from it by bringing players into our program as well.

Well, one, I think I really like our quarterback room. You know, I really liked the progress Dylan has made and even Max, you know, Max has gone through some tough times losing his mom this past week and, but has come out every single day and just had great focus and great intentionality to every rep. And you look at where Drake is. I mean, Drake's, you know, made huge strides from the moment he got here to where he is now.

And then we'll add another player. And again, it always starts with one, can the quarterback lead the team? Period. You know, it doesn't matter if you're the first guy, the second guy, the third guy, the fourth guy, the fifth guy.

You know, we know we want to have five quarterbacks on our roster. We know that. And every single one of them have to have the intangibles of leading the entire football team.

We start with that. And then we go right down the list to all the things that, you know, can get better and you can coach and you can develop at the quarterback position. You know, not just the arm strength, but the accuracy, the processing information, the ability to run the offense the way we need to be able to do it.

You know, just saying his name, Ski-U-Jah all the time over the loudspeaker and joking around with him from 90 yards away about his finish. You know, our handshake at the end of every single practice. I'm going to miss his smile.

I'm going to miss, you know, as a football player, you're going to miss all the things that he does, but more importantly, you're going to miss the person because he's grown a lot. I mean, he was voted in as one of our captains midway through the year, which I think that if you would have told me Jah was going to be a captain his freshman year, I'd say, yeah, that's a long, long way away. He's got a lot of work to do.

And I think he's closed the gap on that. That's voted on by his teammates. And, you know, I'm just going to miss that every single day seeing him and he's a high quality individual and a great person and obviously done a lot for our program on the field and off the field and serves and gives an awful lot. You know, that doesn't get covered enough. I'm not saying that just about you guys.

I'm saying in general, like, that's what I love about our guys. They serve and give so much that doesn't get any coverage and shouldn't. They just do it on their own.

Jah is a very selfless individual. And we're going to miss him a lot around here

In 2019, he was defensive coordinator here or at Penn State when we played him here.

You know, I went out to visit Penn State a few years ago and got a chance to see him when he was out there. He's a really good defensive mind, does a really good job. And coming from the James Franklin tree, you're going to be incredibly organized.

You're going to have a really good team that plays incredibly hard. I mean, you're going to fly around. And, you know, he's got a lot of energy, too. And, you know, I got a lot of respect for him, seeing him over the years. I don't know much about their football team. You know, no disrespect there.

I haven't started studying them just yet. There's five, six teams that people talk about in three to four destinations. And you'd be getting ahead on 20 teams.

You know, we're focusing on our team right now. But I do know, I mean, you go back and look at all their stats and you look at all the close games they lost. This is a team that can easily be 10 and two.

They ended up being six and six, very similar to us in that side that, you know, we could be easily maybe better than that. But our record is what it says it was. I mean, we had seven one possession games.

I mean, they had five one score losses. I mean, they're in every single game that you play in the ACC. So, I mean, they beat some really good teams, too. Beating that Georgia Tech team was really, really good. So we got our work cut out for us. I'm glad we have a lot of time because we're going to need it.

Really good football team. Should be a great matchup in Charlotte. And we couldn't be more grateful, like I said, to all the people at Dukes Mayo for selecting u and Danny Morrison, I mean, can't thank him enough, his entire staff. So we look forward to being out there. Again, it's a celebration of the season, a celebration of our players.

And we're definitely going to do that. So can't wait to get out there. It's a while till we get out there So we got a lot of work to do and prepare and get our team better. So thanks for your time. Thanks for coming out.

Row the boat, Ski U Mah. Go Gophers. Talk to you soon.

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