P.J. Fleck Week 1 Press Conference | Minnesota Football

hey everybody uh great to see so many familiar faces uh thanks for coming out just got off the practice field so uh a little casual but uh we can make make do of this uh great to see all your faces football season's right around the corner 10 days away from kickoff really excited uh really like this football team I'm sure you have a lot of questions so you know I I did enough of my opening pressure at the Big 10 media day uh what was the time 10:40 1050 not bad some of the false reports out there is 1450 is inaccurate it was 1040 I think uh not to say anybody in here did that just saying heard some rumors so we'll get to questions how's that good to see everybody on Tuesday you talked about Thursday maybe being a scrimmage for some evaluations how did that go what did you what' you see yeah it went great you know I mean we've done a few things we've had another scrimmage we've had a mock game um where we go through all special teams situations do it under the lights uh we were going to have one in the stadium on Thursday but weather uh made us come inside but we did the same type of thing uh I love this football team I love the depth of this football team love the competition of this football team uh we have more competition this year in in 2024 than we've had uh since I've been the head coach here at Minnesota and that's a credit to our staff our recruiting the players the way they've kind of Taken on this whole year um so hopefully I answer your question we got a lot of questions answered but it's not about just answering questions okay you're number one we have a lot of different starters uh we do uh we have a lot of guys that are going to be splitting time so they're both starters and so I I think that's what's really healthy about this football team as we keep going forward what positions could you see splitting time as a possibility I think any when you look at defensive line I think there's going to be rotations that continue to happen just like that normally is we just have more people that are going to be rotating which is good for our D line offensive line you can see at some positions we're going to be doing that as well wide receiver we're going to be rolling some people in tight end you're going to be rolling some people in um you know you want to be able to do it we have so many different packages on defense too so it's hard to sit there and go hey here's the 11 guys I mean from nickel package to our dime package to all these other packages that we have as we talked earlier about the Personnel that our defense has I think that helps as we continue to go into game one uh I'm not going to tell you all those different packages but it it's really fun to be able to to Plug and Play based on what these guys can do and put different combinations on the field whether it's first or second down or third down type of development have you noticed from The Corner Room throughout Camp yeah tremendous growth um you know we I was just having a discussion with one of our coaches about that um you know you have Wally and you have Ethan both those guys played a ton of football but when you start to look at like Zan Bryant's development uh you're really pleased with what he's been able to do especially for such a young kid he got a chance to play in the bll game U but that that has helped him exponentially get to where he is right now we've got a lot of other guys in that mix at that corner position Ryan Kelly's had a really good camp uh you know he's big long strong he's gained a bunch of weight um you know and then we've got a bunch of guys that can play a lot of different positions whether they slide down inside stay outside um that's a pretty deep r room um and they're aggressive like they they've done a really good job of getting better I think Coachman R's done a great job coaching them um got to keep getting better but I I like where we are there and and you mix that with the safeties and then the Nickels you start to look at there's more guys that are going to be playing in the secondary than we've had in the past PJ U New Era of college football with transfer portal yeah uh name image likeness Revenue sharing looks like coming down the pike expansion of the salary cap yeah expans of the Big 10 expansion the college football playoff what do you think is the what's the ceiling as you look at it for this program now in this new era a lot of changes Dave I love the question um I think it's a little bit uh we're 10 days from game day I think that's a little more for a few weeks ago and maybe the off season but I do think the changes of college football uh are really healthy for where we're going it's really positive for the student athlete it's positive for the universities as you can see financially uh but when you start to look at what it's going to do for the change of college football we don't necessarily know what that's going to look like um we're not there yet um nobody's there yet that's the future I think with the new college football expansion I think that makes people really excited especially at the University of Minnesota as I said at Big 10 media day I think when you had four teams in the college football playoff you could probably name two or three that were going to make it from the start of the Season then they were probably in there at the end and maybe there was one or two that maybe some people had On The Fringe or maybe there was one shock I think as you go through this and if it's 12 game or 12 teams which it is in the college football playoff that leaves the window open for a lot of teams uh to get in there from different conferences and I think that's exciting for the fans it's exciting for college football and the and the growth of our Sport and the health of our sport as we keep moving and moving forward one thing I've always loved about college football is it constantly changes there's one thing that changes is it always changes and I think that's what makes it really exciting not just rules but how it's all done not just like on the field to you know this this year we're going to talk about you know the uh the drop tackle and that's fine those are those are all good changes um but I'm talking about huge changes that change the Dynamics of what college football looked like in the future based on what was in the past words like scholarship walk- on whatever our definitions were prior to that of that and our vision of that was those are all changing of what that word actually means it has a lot of different meetings now won has a lot of different meetings now 105 puts a lot of different puts people on this this this parody uh not equal playing field because with nil still being in play but when you start talking salary cap and you start talking those types of things it it definitely creates a little bit I think more parody where I think every fan base is going to sit there and go okay Hey listen we got a great opportunity here if we invest in X Y and Z uh we have just as good a shot as as a lot of other teams so that's what's really exciting as we go forward and I think I've said that publicly at Big 10 media day that I think it's really healthy especially for Minnesota um with the changes of college football PJ when you went looking for a quarterback and you got Max how involved did you think FCS level would be in that in that search um I'm sorry Randy you mean getting something from the FCF level was that something you were looking at all along or yeah no it wasn't it wasn't necessarily we needed somebody just from FCS I mean it wasn't FCS or Bust it was the best available player and we we needed somebody to come in here that understood the situation there was pressure of the situation right from the start we had to find the right fit for what we were looking for and if you think back to it Randy we weren't we didn't bring in four quarterbacks with all this nil money and and stuff like that and say okay you guys all compete and let's go we had to bring in somebody who was going to be able to lead the team the minute they got here was going to be able to do okay without maybe the most without the most competition threatening them was going to to do okay with maybe not competition threatening them knowing that they're the guy to handle that responsibility in a very mature way and in a leadership way um and go out there and perform at the highest level um because the option after that for us was okay a true freshman and bringing in another guy that we're going to develop so when you're looking at it you had to be right so I mean every decision you make you want to be right and you're feeling you have to be right but this one we had to get right and Max is just exceed eded all of our expectations he's got to go out there and prove it and play on game day and and do what he does every single day the only thing Max brosmer has to do is be the best version of Max brosmer every day and that's what he that's what he's capable of doing and that's what he'll do and we have the most confidence in him he's had a great six months um he's an amazing human being and uh he's made this program better he's made the people around him better he's made our culture better he's made University of Minnesota better and uh I'm really proud of him for that and it's going to be fun to be able to watch him here in 10 days how do you uh or how's Darius Taylor doing right now and how do you feel about the running back down yeah he's doing great you know we brought in a a ton of players for that reason in in general if anybody ever gets banged up we got a few bumps and bruises but you know I'm going to use the same line as we get in 10 days before game day I mean the injury report will come out you know two hours before kickoff but this is a very healthy football team and uh I love how they've gone about uh their business throughout training camp I thought we structured it uh to benefit them which we always do but you learn from your past to create your future on certain things we listened to a lot of the science and data and applied our whole training camp schedule accordingly but I really like the depth of the room from the top with Darius all the way down and we brought in a lot of guys for that position a lot of guys who have played big- time college football uh and then some other guys that have been Young have really come on strong uh so it's going to be fun to see how that all plays out and as the guys continue to compete within the season but feel really good about where we're at 10 days out what do you think you know about North Carolina in 2024 yeah I mean we just started them yesterday with game planning and looking at them and starting to work with our coaching staff and dedicating a lot of hours towards that in between our players and training camp first of all I got a lot of respect for ma Brown a lot of you I think it's well documented the relationship him and I have and he's always been really really good to me I mean he's he he's been a a sneaky mentor because I I get him at the most opportune times and uh he's always been really really good to me um they're really talented I mean they got eight returning starters on defense and they added a bunch of transfers that do start other places in the ACC or other places they're deep um I think it's well documented I think the AP All-American team came out and uh you know one of the running backs on Hampton I mean he's he's really really good and we played against them last year uh they've got a stable of running backs they always do they've got really good receivers I think every every body's talking about well Drake May's not there but they reloaded they didn't rebuild they reloaded uh with the guys that they have now I know they're not NE in a starter and and uh we just we expect to see two or three of them and we'll prepare that way but they all can run they all can throw um you know they've all played college football at a high level so but they're talented I mean they're a North Carolina team ACC team and Mac Brown coach team and