Gophers Coach P.J. Fleck, players speak after Indiana loss

Okay. First and foremost, got to give Indiana a lot of credit. Really good football team. Defending national champions. What an environment. Homecoming here. We expected to win that football game. That's what I'm really, really proud of our players for. You know, we have a saying in our program, sports are not kind. You don't get into sports because it's all going to be rainbows, butterflies, and sunshine. Fortunately, we're on the other end of it. And it's a really hurt locker room. We care about my players a ton. I know our coaches do. It's a heartbreaking loss. But we did everything we possibly could to win that football game. Not everything's going to be perfect. We did everything you possibly could to put yourself in a position to be top 14 in the country. Had every opportunity to win it, even in the 19 seconds final defensive play. I mean, do everything that we're coached to do. So proud of our players. I'm so proud of the fight. It was all, I'm up in here thinking we did everything we could. You've got to give them credit. Their playmakers made plays when they needed to make them. Hoosiers are number one in the country. So proud of our football team. I'm proud of our coaches. I'm proud to represent them as a head football coach here at the University of Minnesota. I always will be. I told them all I care about is how you play. Results are going to take care of itself. How you play, that's how you get measured as a man, as a football player, how you live your life. And this isn't like, oh, man, you know, we're not a good team, and we came out here, and, oh, we gave them a good shot, and everybody played bad, and we had a chance. We're a really good football team. Again, one possession game, another ranked opponent, and we got the lead with two seconds left. So I'm at a distance. They expect to win here. And we're a really good football team, and into another really good football team. When we look at our schedule, that's just the way it is. We're a ranked team. than anybody else, I think in the country. What I love about the team, they love doing it. Sports aren't kind. We teach our kids that, too. If you want to get into sports, they're not kind. We're going to have some really good ones. We're going to have some really hard ones. It was a hard one. They've got to give Coach Cignetti and his team a ton of credit. They're a very, very good football team. They've been battle tested the last few weeks, too. They've come through. They've found ways to win games. They replay makers, they've done big-time things. So congratulations to them. We'll learn from this. There's a lot to learn from, a lot to take. And then what we'll do is... We'll study this tonight and into tomorrow, then we'll go on to UCLA, another top five, six, 17, one over there. Look forward to our fans showing up at Huntington Bank Stadium and have an elite environment like it always is. We'll learn from this and do everything we can to play better next week. We learned from the Iowa game, right? We played on top and carried through the back shoulder. So we played trail technique, played safety over the top, and I'm earning. In his range, absolutely. I was double-checking, double-checking, double-checking, and he was back. Good kid makes another great win. Evaluation, he's got some hard. I think what we lose sight of, and you guys don't care about this, and that's fine, you have a job to do, I have a job to do, is a really good defense, and you're not just going to go out there and score 40 points because you want to score 40 points, that's one of the best defenses in the country, traffic's all over the place, it's just going to be smooth, 100 yards, 100-200, and it's a national champs in the country, and they can allow anything, they're aggressive, they're tough, they're smart, resilient, got after it, and again, I can't wait to see the swarm rate, that takeaway, and how we got around the ball. A lot of our guys, that is an unbelievable football game. That is an unbelievable football game. The team got the money to work. And everything that we said we were going to do, we just told our team. We said we did everything we said we were going to do. Exactly. And that's sport. Sometimes you do everything you're supposed to do, how you're supposed to do it, when you're supposed to do it, the way you're supposed to do it, and you're going to win. Winning is not promised. You've got to keep earning it all the way to the whistle, final whistle. They had to earn it the final second, 60 yards into the win. They had to earn it. That's what sports are kind. I love it. I'm proud of their heart, the type of men they are, the type of people they are. It's one game. They lost. They expected to win. They didn't win. We'll learn from it like any other game. We'll move on and do everything we possibly can to find a way to go beat UCLA. I'm by on an arm right now. Injury he has for him to sit there and say, okay, I missed last week. Let them be ready to go this week. Said a ton about that. The team loves each other. They want to be out there for each other. They want to play for each other. It's a man's game. A really good job done. I've got to go back. I haven't watched all the film. I'm in between with iPads and things like that. We've got to find out what areas we didn't play so well, and then we've got to find a way to highlight the things we did well. We've got to keep in mind that everybody played incredibly hard on defense. They've just got some incredible playmakers, too, and we made it really hard on them, and we're going to have to be really, really good. That quarterback came in, did a lot of special things, did a lot of great things, and got a really good number two quarterback. He's going to win you games, too, out of any team I've ever seen. Literally, I appreciate everybody doing their job. Thanks for taking the trip. Thanks for making the trip. Sorry we didn't do our part to get that one done. This team is expected to win that football game. Congratulations to them. We'll do anything. Go, go, Sky. Might as well go. Learn from novice's things. I mean, no doubt.