Everything that P.J. Fleck said following Minnesota's win over Wisconsin

Thanks to everybody for making the trip out here. Happy Thanksgiving to everybody that’s out there. I know a lot of people — this is one of the best days and the best weekends of the year. One, because it’s Thanksgiving, and we all have a lot to be thankful and grateful for. We all do, no matter what your situation is. You can always find that. And obviously, there’s so much football being played.

At 11:00 AM, we’ll head back with the axe for the four-hour bus ride, and we’ll really enjoy that. I thought our players dominated the football game. I thought they did from start to finish. I think there are four or five plays we’d want back where it could have been even more lopsided. I thought we made a statement in the rivalry, winning three out of four here at Camp Randall. We take a lot of pride in that.

We knew we were going to have to play really well, and I thought our guys swarmed to the football on defense. We tackled really well. In a game where it’s 0°, those hits — both ways — are going to sting. We just wanted to be on the plus side of those things. The way we tackled and swarmed to the ball, I thought we did a great job. Limiting them to explosive plays was key.

Our team just played for each other, and I think that’s what’s really cool about this group. From day one, they’ve played for each other. I think other people are playing for other things, like streaks and all that other stuff, but we were able to play for each other and get the victory. That was really, really big for us — another step in the right direction. We wanted to be 1–0 today, and we did it for each other.

I think offensively, Max Brosmer played an outstanding game. I think our offensive line did as well. Aireontae goes out on the first play, first series. You know, Quinn Carroll and I had a talk about possibly moving him to left tackle if Aireontae decides to declare for the draft — which I’m sure he will. When you’re a first-rounder, I think that’s what you decide to do.

But we had that talk two weeks ago, and it’s kind of crazy how it came to fruition a little quicker than I wanted it to. I thought Quinn did an outstanding job. That whole line pushed together. He hasn’t played left tackle in practice, hasn’t done all of it, and for him to go over there says a lot about him and his commitment to this team.

The last thing we said was that we needed to be fully committed. We didn’t just need contributions from everyone; we needed full commitment. Coming off a short week, I thought our schedule was really, really good. I think we had four or five periods that were actually full-speed reps the entire week. Then we went all group tempo to make sure they felt as good as they could on game day.

Last but not least, special teams — I thought that was the difference for us in a lot of different areas. If you look at Dragan Kesich, it’s a great lesson for young Gopher fans out there. He misses against North Carolina, hits the upright from close at the beginning of the year, misses the game-winner — and now he seals the game here. It’s a great bookend to a great career.

Especially after the missed field goal and the kickoff out of bounds, to be able to get your mind right, come back, and make that kick is huge. It made it a three-score game and really ended the game at that point.

I’m really proud of our team. I’m proud of their resolve and resiliency all year. We had seven one-possession games this year in the regular season. We were 3–4 in those one-possession games. It could’ve gone a lot of different ways. I don’t live in the “coulda, shoulda” world, but this is a really good football team that fought, scratched, and clawed all year. They kept rowing the boat.

I’m really proud. It’s a great victory for us. Back-to-back wins here — is that right? Three? Back-to-back wins here for the first time since the early 80s. I was born in 1980, so that’s another huge development and shift in the rivalry. That’s our whole goal — to create streaks of our own, just like Wisconsin has had for a lot of years before we got here.

I’m just proud to coach this team. It’s a happy locker room right now, and a grateful locker room. With that, I’ll open it up for questions.

Yeah, I just saw the personality of the team, Andy. They’ve been that way all year. I mean, you saw their hearts, their mindset. They’re playing for each other, and you saw it today.

One score — OK, we’ve got a lead, then a head out of bounds. But they just kept responding. Everybody on the sideline was saying, “Respond, respond, respond.” We said we needed a full commitment from everybody — a full commitment from our sideline, a full commitment to encouraging everybody through the highs and the lows.

Just keep rowing the boat. Just keep going. Next play, one oar, next play. I thought they did a great job of that today.

Well, first of all, I think, you know, when you’re looking at him and a lot of people say, “Well, he was an FCS quarterback,” and I get that. But, I mean, this guy’s a Walter Payton finalist, and that’s the top three. That’s the FCS Heisman. He’s really, really good, and we knew if we could get him, we could make him even better and we could keep developing him.

But one thing, Chip, that made it easy for us was I’ve never heard of a college or university that was losing their quarterback to the portal promote their player more than ever to us. At one point, I looked at the staff and said, “Guys, are we sure? Like, they’re not overselling us, are they? Like, they’re selling us something, you know?” Because of that, you’re pretty paranoid. But it was his college coaches at New Hampshire. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that in the portal. Every single person was like, “You know, he needs to be there. That’s a perfect culture. It’s a perfect program.”

I think when he got with his mom and dad and, you know, those types of people, and you know exactly what Max was looking for—Max wasn’t going into the portal just to go in the portal. He was staying in New Hampshire unless he found the right opportunity with the right team. For us, we had to be right, Chip. I remember having a conversation like, “Man, you have to be who you say you are because I don’t have a backup. Like, I have to be all in on this, and you have to be all in on this.”

A lot of times, people think it’s one way. It’s just from the player’s perspective. But from the coaching perspective, you have to be right just as much as they have to be right. The next guy is a redshirt freshman, a true freshman who’s not ready to play yet. He’s going to be really good. But that’s what we talked to him about, and I think when he came on his visit, it’s real. It’s authentic.

It was a perfect marriage. He was looking for a life program, plus being able to play. I mean, his leadership and his confidence are unreal. People talk about the beginning of the year with him—maybe there were some ups and downs. Anything he does the first time is probably going to come with a little bit of a learning curve. Anything he does now, that’s not going to happen very long because he’s quickly going to get into the mastery phase, and he’s done that.

I’ve never seen a young man spend more time in the facility as a player — NFL or college — than I’ve ever been around. At every place I’ve been, nobody has spent more time than Max Brosmer.

QUESTION: You said it was both sides, is it fair to say you changed too?

II would say that’s probably really accurate. I had to change. And look, I’m not saying I had to change because I’ve done 11 years of the same thing prior to year 12. If you go back to Western Michigan, I mean, we had some of the most dynamic receivers in the country and threw the ball an awful lot. With the run game, you have Mohamed Ibrahim, Chip. I’m not… you’ve never coached, right? And I’ve never been a journalist. But you would have run the ball just as much as I did if you had Mohamed Ibrahim in that backfield.

We have different backs. It wasn’t just Max, but it was the ability to trust Max to throw, to run it—because you’ve got running the ball where everybody knows you’re going to run the ball—then you’ve got throwing to run it. And then he’s got throwing the ball. He can do all three. And if you saw tonight, we actually had a designed quarterback run for him. He didn’t get in, but it was a quarterback run for him, where they actually snapped it to him and ran the lead play, the follow play.

He is one of the most special people I’ve ever been around. Again, I can’t… it’s not because we won. I’ve said this all year: you can’t duplicate him. He’s an NFL quarterback, and he’s somebody that people fall in love with. The more you’re around him, the more you’re going to fall in love with him.

This guy is hard to come out of the game. He’s playing in the bowl game. His mental processing, his leadership, the connectivity… he started this all the way back in the spring by taking everybody to Georgia with him in the pass game, getting our O-line to those skill camps. I don’t know if anybody understands how difficult it is to come into a team from day one, lead the whole team, and you don’t know anybody’s name. It took him two days. He had everybody down.

He studied that. He said, “If I’m going to lead the team, I gotta know everybody—at least everybody’s name.” I mean, that’s what he does. When people say that you’ve got a coach on the field—I think that’s a corny saying—he truly is a coach on the field. He’ll be an NFL head coach, NFL coordinator, college head coach, or college coordinator—unless he decides to be a heart surgeon, which they’re about the same.QUESTION: What clicked for the Gophers defense today?

Well, I think it was just the small things. We tackled really well. I thought we tackled in open space really well. We swarmed tackled. I thought we created penetration in the backfield in the run game. I think they were never able to, even in the gap schemes, get to the patience. You know, you’ve got to be slow to in the gap schemes, fast through. Well, they were slow to, but we had already created pushback.

I thought on the outside that our guys stuck to them like glue. We had to. And the quarterback—you know, he’s a really good player, he can sling it—but he’s 6’1″, and we felt like there’s a lot of big people in front. Their offensive line’s big. We’re big. We felt that if we could get really big, he was going to have to be really precise in a lot of the man coverage stuff.

We felt like we liked our matchups. We had some great pass breakups with their down-the-field pass game, and then when they did hit it, we got it on the ground or we responded the next play. But I thought it was true team defense. Nobody was doing it for themselves—everybody was doing it for each other. They were sound, they were disciplined.

You know, there are some things you want back—the late hit out of bounds, I mean, those are the things that cost you. I mean, he doesn’t mean to do that. He’s a great kid, and he’ll learn from that. On the offensive side, we dropped the ball late. That could have sealed the game, too. But, I mean, the catches we made at the wide receiver position in these types of conditions, in this type of wind, the tackles we were making, the form… backline.

That’s just Minnesota. Go and go for it.

QUESTION: What went into Marcus Major’s 40-yard run and call

Yeah, we got a bunch of stuff out of that formation. You know, we do. I mean, we’ve proven that we’ve done a lot of different things, and I mean, it’s a true check. You know, we have a bunch of stuff, and we have seven or eight things we can do out of that, which is a lot of fun.

You know, I think it was a great check by Max, and you break one tackle, and that’s the type of play it is. You know, I think everybody in the stadium thinks you’re going to push, and that’s the point of it. You want everybody to think that because we do it a lot, and we’re good at it.

You know, we teach it on the other side of the ball—you’ve got to be ready for those types of things to defend against those things. But I think it’s a great play call by Greg Harbaugh. I think our coaches have just grown so much this year. When your team is teaching you so much—when the players are teaching the coaches—not just about football but about life and lessons, it’s just a fun group to be around.

It’s a fun team to be around, and you know you’ve got special kids when you’re learning so much from them instead of just teaching them. They’re teaching you a lot of things, too.

And you know Marcus Major—I mean, he’s not getting 35 carries a game, but when his number is called, he goes in there and executes it perfectly. That was a great, great play.

QUESTION: Does it being his birthday add anything to today’s celebration?

I’ll let you know later. I’m just excited for the bus ride, you know? I mean, we love and choose the blue-collar mentality with the bus ride here, and I think our players embrace that. We like to do that for rivalry games and, you know, the ones that are close enough to do that.

I think they take that mentality on the bus, and, you know, we stop halfway and get a little workout in. It’s just a team camaraderie thing that we do, and our administration allows us to do it, which I think is really cool.

So we’ve got a good four- or four-and-a-half-hour bus ride with that axe right there in the aisle. It’s going to be great. We’re passing it around, switching buses. We take it very seriously. We love that thing. We never take that thing for granted, and it’s good to have it back in the Twin Cities and at the University of Minnesota.

I can’t thank our fans enough for coming out to Camp Randall. I heard you, and we heard you the entire time. You were really loud.

Another thing I just want to note—what a play by design, play call, and catch by Jamison Geersin the back of the end zone. We needed our best players and our playmakers to make huge plays today, and I thought they all did. At all the crucial times, they did a great job of that.

QUESTION: Do you get anything out of ending Wisconsin’s bowl streak?

Yeah, I mean, that’s for them to worry about. We don’t really talk much about that. We talk about us, and we talk about us, and we talk about us. I guess people play for different things. This team is truly about playing for one another. The rivalries are great. The rewards for it are great. When you play really well, when you look at it… you know, besides Iowa, our three rivalry games, or three other rivalry games, came down to a one-point loss and a few-point loss against Michigan, and we needed one bad.

I just felt that with our team, I felt like they really needed that, and they came out and left no doubt. They weren’t going to have a one-possession game today, and I think that was in their mentality. But again, I can’t speak on their behalf of what they’re fighting for and what they’re doing. But if that’s the case, then I guess that’s what rivalries are all about.QUESTION: Was the cold a factor?

We’re at the University of Minnesota. You don’t let the cold get to you. You. You know you adapt and that’s the kind of weather we play in and we talk about our north and our players really, really embrace that when you get to November, our N is coming and our players love it. You should love it, I. Mean. I’m not sure how you can’t love it if you come to the University of Minnesota you just have to know that winter is there and we get all Four Seasons. I mean, three of the seasons are the most beautiful in the world, I think and the other ones just, you know, cover the white stuff on the ground, but it’s still really beautiful. You know, our Minnesotans embraced the winner and I think they embrace it, unlike. Any. Other and it’s so fun to be a member of that state and that. Community and we got so many people who, you know, the critics are here and how much they mean to us and what they’ve. Done. For our program and I’m not going to get into naming every single donor and people that are there, but like just they’re, you know, Mark and Deborah, just incredible people who support us through and through, and when you see the emotion on their faces who have been. Supporters of the program for so long. You know you’re doing all the right things because at the end of the day, as a head coach, you work for them. You work for the players, you work for your staff, you work for the administration, you work for the state, you work for the City of Minneapolis, the University and I take that really personal and I can’t thank you guys enough for the all that you’ve done and you know like go back to it. But I think our players just embrace that. Our N mentality and they love it. When we get that November, November, weather here in the north?