Minnesota head football coach PJ Fleck held his weekly press conference on Monday morning to discuss the Gophers' 34-7 win over Michigan State and preview their upcoming homecoming game against Purdue.

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Fleck started his Monday press conference off by discussing the launching of Dinkeytown Athletes. "Which is incredibly important for the future of our program, important for college football, for all student-athletes. A collective was formed to support our student-athletes through the ever changing landscape and world of college athletics," Fleck said regarding the NIL collective.

"Calling on all of donors, boosters, fans, alumni, anyone who supports our program to really look at this collective. It's called action, to really support our student-athletes here at the University of Minnesota in this ever changing landscape of college athletics as we keep moving forward," he added.

"It's incredibly important as we get into the roster management. Building a roster of the future of especially college football of what we need to be able to do going forward."

The first question for Fleck on Monday was regarding the Gophers' defensive game plan. Against Michigan State, the Gophers allowed just seven points and 240 total yards of offense.

"I thought we had a really good defensive gameplan, had to keep some things in front of us. I think we had one time where Jaylen Reed went by on a post and they overthrew it, but I think that's one of the rare times they went over our head. We knew we had to be able to change the picture for Peyton (Thorne), he's a really good quarterback," Fleck said.

Joe Rossi's defense was able to do just that against Thorne, keeping the signal caller to just a pedestrian stat line of 17-for-24 for 132 yards while intercepting a pair of passes.

For the first time since the start of the 2020 season, the Gophers are ranked inside the top-25 in both the AP and Coaches poll. When asked about being inside the top-25 but also blocking out any "outside noise".

"I think anytime that happens, that's good for the brand of the University of Minnesota," he said. "You know it's good for our president, it's good for our admissions, it's good for everything. You know we are not the most important thing on this campus or at this university, or even in this town, made that very clear. But we can be a front porch to all the things we've talked about."

But while being ranked in the top 25 can be beneficial in all the ways he mentioned, it doesn't mean anything changes inside the program. "The external message will get louder but the internal message has to be you know the loudest," he said about outside noise. "This is a perfect example of homecoming I always give my homecoming quote you know we're not in charge of the punch, we're not in charge of the streamers, we're not in charge of what to match our dress with our suit of our date, we're not in charge of any of that right, I mean we're in charge of taking care of a football game and playing our best football to be 1-0."

The Gophers will look to improve to 5-0 this upcoming Saturday against the Purdue Boilermakers with kickoff scheduled for 11:00 a.m. local time.

"I think that's you know that's helped us, you know I think third down has helped us.

After being named the Big Ten Player of the Week, Fleck was asked about quarterback Tanner Morgan's success so far this season. Fleck praised Morgan and his mindset.

"I used that quote the other day or not the quote but I told you the story of how we actually watched Jerry Rice talk about being interviewed. He's being interviewed and he's talking about the mastery part and somebody asked him when did you know you mastered the wide receiver position. He goes, I never mastered the wide receiver position in fact I still haven't and the interviewers were perplexed," Fleck began his answer with. "That mindset Tanner has, that I'll never get there, it's not about the end, it's about the about the journey, and he constantly wants to get better he wants to make everybody else around him better."

He would go on to add, "I just keep seeing that getting better and better and better um and he's just super competitive you know which is what you want in a leader."

A former wide receiver himself, PJ Fleck obviously knows a thing or two about wide receivers and was highly praising of Purdue star wide receiver Charlie Jones.

"He's just such an active receiver he does everything really well blocks well," Fleck said regarding the Boilermakers' leading receiver. "He could play running back if he put if you put him back he'd be a really good running back as well, he plays incredibly strong he plays way above how big he, he catches the ball contested maybe better than maybe as good as anybody in the Big Ten right now and he's always competitive."

Jones this season already has 41 receptions for 533 yards and seven touchdowns.

"I'm just excited to be back in Huntington Bank Stadium. You know like I said our job is it's a game for us, you know we've got to find a way to put the best plan together to become 1-0 against a really good Purdue team," he said about the planned stripe out. "But we have incredible fans I hope everybody knows what section they're in, they know exactly what to wear."

"He's been doing this now for two years, it's just we haven't got him on the field consistently with some health deals... He's had tremendous training camp up until the point he got hurt but that's what he's been doing."

"First of all, a Jeff Brohmcoached offense is going to be really good, no matter who's at quarterback, it doesn't matter," Fleck said in his answer regarding facing Purdue's offense this week who was without star quarterback Aiden O'Connell last week. "I mean he's one of the best x's and o's scheme coaches around, always has been. He's very talented at getting the most out of his personnel. Scheming different teams up."

"He does such a good job of creating a whole new game plan for that particular opponent and there's always new wrinkles and a lot of them. He's got explosive playmakers everywhere ... It's consistent quarterback play no matter who's in there."

If Aiden O'Connell is unable to go for Purdue on Saturday, backup and sixth-year quarterback Austin Burton will go for the Boilermakers.

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