On Monday afternoon, Minnesota Golden Gophers head football coach PJ Fleck had his weekly press conference with the media. Fleck spoke to the gathered media for nearly 20 minutes covering a wide range of topics in the process.

To start off Monday's press conference, Fleck was asked about his thoughts regarding the Gophers scheduling "big brand name" teams from other conferences in the future. "Definitely open to that," Fleck told the media during his response. That being said, Fleck also noted that while they're open to it, they're already scheduling games that are 10 to 20 years away and that he and his program are still playing in games that they didn't even schedule.

The Gophers are currently set to play North Carolina in 2023 and 2024. California in 2025 and 2028 as well as Mississippi State in 2026 and 2027.

When asked about the improvement of Minnesota’s defense during his tenure especially in his fast the Gophers tend to play on defense, Fleck’s answer went more towards the Gophers playing complimentary football

“In this league you have to play incredible defense to win,” he said. “I do think the importance of having complimentary offense, and defense, and special teams is more important now than it’s ever been and I think that’s one thing we looked at as a staff and said how can we build something here that’s complimentary. That’s what the whole mission was at the beginning, how can we play complimentary football,” he would add in his responses.

Fleck would go onto praise Minnesota defensive coordinator Joe Rossi while also talking about the building of depth in the program. He specifically referred to the defensive line where the Gophers had a heavy freshmen presence at the end of Saturday’s game against Western Illinois, “that’s what we’re working towards.” But Fleck knows in the ever changing world of college football with the transfer portal and NIL it will more difficult to continue to build that depth going forward.

One of the bigger moments of the Gophers win over Western Illinois was running back Preston Jelen scoring his first touchdown. It was a moment that was one they lit up the entirety of the Minnesota sidelines and was one of the more wholesome moments you’ll likely see this year in college football. Fleck was asked about that moment on Monday and it’s safe to say that Jelen means a great deal to Fleck and the program as a whole.

"He's such an important person on this football team," Fleck told the media. "He's such a selfless player, he's willing to do whatever it takes," he would later add. He would continue to praise the Prior Lake (MN) native by saying "He's everything you want in a person on this football team and he sets the tone and example for a lot of people on how to work and how to overcome adversity because he's had a lot of it."

“Our focus is on us and getting better every single day,” was Fleck’s response when asked about Mo Ibrahim and if there’s a focus to make him an integral part of the offense every week with possible rewards down the line. “But I do think we have really talented skill players that more success a team has, the more individual success they will have. I think that’s what our focus is, 1-0 against Colorado and keep it on that.”

One of the better quotes from Fleck’s presser and in really what could be taken as life advice came when Fleck was asked about if he discusses with his team about other games around the country and the things that occur.

“We do,” Fleck responded. “We pulled things out of four or five different games because there’s two ways of learning in the world. There’s the easy way and the hard way. The easy way is learning from other people’s mistakes. The hard way is learning from your own mistakes. One of the jobs as a head football coach is to make sure team learns as much as they can the easy way and that’s by constant education. Proactive education, that’s how you do everything you can to protect your football team. Protecting is not doing something reactive after it happens, it’s doing everything you can proactively to fight human nature and that’s what this job is about.”

Overall, that’s one of the better quotes I’ve heard from a college football coach in quite a while in regards to coaching philosophy. While it may seem like a quite obvious philosophy it’s likely also one that not enough coaches do proactively.

Earlier in his press conference, he also spoke on resilience when asked about wide receiver Michael Brown-Steven’s who fumbled against Western Illinois before bouncing right back.

“Things are going to happen, it’s football… Things happen, it’s the old cliche, it’s not what happens to you but this whole program, this hyper culture is built on the last R. That’s response.” Fleck said about Michael Brown-Steven’s and bouncing right back following a fumble in Saturday’s game. I would say maybe two years ago, he doesn’t respond that way and come back with 22 yards of YAC on the next play… That's him overcoming all the challenges he's had, him making himself a really good football player, him embracing the coaching, embracing the culture, understanding that life is really about the response, not what happens to you, what happens within you. He’s grown tremendously as a person on the field, off the field and that's what you see. When you're a better person, you're gonna ultimately become a better player.”

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