P.J. Fleck Show: Coaches thoughts on UCLA loss, Penn State ahead

The PJ Flex Show is presented by Window Concepts and Affinity Plus Federal Credit Union. Our how is everything. How you do something matters. Culture. How. Next time, the mentality. That better be first. The PJ Flex Show starts now. Hi, everyone, and welcome to another edition of the P.J. Fleck Show, joined once again by the head coach of Gopher football, P.J. Fleck, alongside Gophers Hall of Famer Ron Johnson, KFAN and Justin Guard. I'm Pierre Newsom. The Gophers stood toe-to-toe with undefeated UCLA, but in the end fall, just a bit short as UCLA goes on to win it 34-20. P.J., now that we've had a couple of days to kind of digest this whole game, when you're looking back at this contest in particular, What stood out to you about this game? What perhaps might have been the most frustrating part about the outcome? Oh, it just didn't earn the opportunity to win the game. And unfortunately, gave up too many explosive plays on defense. Loaded the box, be able to stop the run, but also got to get some calls and some checks on the back end so you don't have some explosive plays. But I love how hard our guys played. I mean, this is one of the best teams in the country. 17-17 with four minutes to go, three to four minutes in the fourth quarter. That's a good order. You know, so offensively, you know, we'd move the football and then we'd stub our toe a little bit with either a penalty or things like that, missed two field goals. But there was a lot of really good football that was played in this offensively, defensively and special teams. We're able to establish a really good run game, a limited amount of possessions, win the time of possession, just didn't earn the opportunity to win, gave up too many explosive plays and and really just had two drive stalls with two penalties, which I can't have. And not to get too football coachy for the people at home to understand, but in coverages, there's quarters, which is four parts of the field. There's halves, which is cover two. There's man beaters. So every offense has a coverage beater. When you look at the quarters coverage or the deep post that happened, one, time has to happen. Quarterback has to have time. But how do you, from the coaching perspective, like coach your coaches up to say, hey, how do we make sure this doesn't happen again? Because, again, a backside corner in quarters is not supposed to be able to carry a guy all the way across to a third part of the field. So how do you kind of also in the future tell your safeties that, too? Yeah, I mean, that's not the scheme is to allow that to happen. I just want to make sure you know that. So, you know, on one of the posts, we have a post player who takes an RPO more of an – had RPO eyes when – He still should just be playing the post, which is just dropping to the middle third and you take away the post. We don't do that. And then on the backside and quarters, once you clear the run, you run all the way back up, you know, on your side of the field and take away the backside hash post. And we didn't do that either. So again, we go back to why we didn't do those things. And as coaches, we got to be way better that way. But we also got to, we got to, everybody's got to do their job and they got to be capable of doing their job. And unfortunately we weren't able to do that in that, in that play. Any other fancy I played the game football questions you want to get into before the dumb guys can ask a couple down here? No, I mean, we could have went into the Vikings because, you know, Byron Murphy, same thing. What PJ's trying to explain is what Byron Murphy did. That was nice. He dropped all the way back and he went and got the backside post and he was the frontside corner. So, yeah, I mean, if somebody else made a mistake, I'll blame myself. I'll ask the dumb football questions. In Minnesota right now, everybody wants to talk about quarterbacks. It's his trade deadline day, by the way. Stay tuned to Fox 9 News. It's coming up. We'll let you know what happens. Busy afternoon. Your quarterback, Drake Lindsay, had to go up against some pretty good defenses. We've talked about it now for a month. How have you seen him progress through the season? I know you thought he improved quite a bit from Indiana to UCLA. I thought he just looked more comfortable in the pocket. I thought he did a good job keeping his eyes down the field in his progressions. I thought Coach Harbaugh did a good job getting the ball out of his hands. I mean, this is one of the better defenses in the country. We played three of the top 10 defenses in the last few weeks. So, I mean, you talk about really good defenses. They're good defenses for a reason. Throw a lot of different looks at you, create pressure on you, blitz you. I'm going to change the picture constantly. But this was a great touchdown by 44. I mean, that's George Roll, another true freshman. And we've got two true freshman tight ends out there, you know, Roman Voss and George Roll. All right. They're true freshmen at tight end, not necessarily the formula that you sit there and say this is how we drew it up, but they are playing at a high level for young players, and it's going to take all of us. You've got to be balanced to win football games in the Big Ten, and I'm not saying just run past equal yardage. You've just got to do whatever the game dictates you have to be able to do to win the football game. You've got to be able to run the football if it dictates that, and you've got to be able to throw the football. I thought we had some pretty good balance for one of the first times in the last few weeks, but again, came up short. For the third straight week, your defense has forced two or more takeaways. That's a pretty impressive streak. What are the players doing well right now to come up with some of these takeaways? Just playing team defense, you know, we talk about 78%. The ball, tackling, and explosive plays, those are the three characteristics to win the football game. And you've got to win those three categories. And we need to get lots of takeaways. For this particular team to win at a really high level, I said this at the beginning of the year, it has to play as complementary as a team I've ever had. Offense, defense, special teams helping each other out. Defense getting multiple opportunities for us to move the ball on offense, get good field position. If we don't successfully move the ball, flip the field position with special teams and create long fields for the other team. So everybody has to rely on each other. When we've won games, we've done that. When we haven't won games, there's been a little bit of a scale that's toppled over a little too much. This has to be. More than any team I've coached here at Minnesota, we've got to be more complimentary than we've ever been. So those takeaways are incredibly important. I mean, I love to talk about blitz protection, offensive line play, but for this question, we're going to stick to the receivers. Don't believe anything before the but. It's a secondary topic that I like to talk about, receiver play. But you look at Jalen Smith, we said he's a homerun hitter. He's a kid that can be really good. Every week, it's a different receiver stepping up. This week was his week. What has Jalen Smith shown, and how does he have to continue to grow? He's a great practice player. He works on his craft constantly. He's very transparent. You can be very honest with him. I think it's really hard to develop in 2026. I think everybody just wants instant satisfaction, gratification. They want to be able to be the guy. There's ways to develop into that. And that's why you've got to be able to continue to get better. This guy continues to get better on a daily basis. He gets better at practice all the time. He's in the film sessions. He loves the game of football. So I'm just glad he's having the year he's having. And again, this isn't about just leading in stats. He's making huge plays for us, and I know he wants to continue to do that. And we look forward to him continuing to do that as the season winds down. You mentioned the two freshman tight ends. Those of us, especially from Minnesota, we obviously know about Roman Voss. We've read about him forever. We know about Roman. Who is George Roll? And what do we need to know about him, the other true freshman tight end? He's from across the border that we don't talk much about. Nobody's perfect. You talk about somebody who's got, like, Nick Caller upsides, athleticism. You know, he'll block you. He'll hit you. He's not afraid of anything. Now, look, he hasn't had even a full season in the weight room. They both just got here in June. So you talk about two true freshmen that have got here, that are playing at a really high level in Big Ten ball. That's the mixture of players we need, especially with how banged up we are on the offensive line and then also at the tight end position. But you look at this kid, I mean, he's tough, he's nasty, he'll hit you, he's fearless, and this is just what a great grab. And from the minute he got here, you're like, this guy's going to be really special. Now, again, you've got to keep developing, got to keep working at it. But I'm glad he's on our football team, that's for sure. You were on the sidelines at the time, but in the press box, I very audibly at that time said, who the heck is George Roll? But now we know. Now we know who he is. He's going to continue to make a name for himself. Awesome young man. Can't wait for everybody to get to know him more. He's a great young man. Can't wait to see him develop. PJ, two weeks in a row now, you guys are in the game in the fourth quarter against two very highly ranked teams. It doesn't fall your way. So what? Are you noticing from your team what needs to perhaps get better in late-game execution? Well, it's executing the simple things at a really, really high level, especially under the pressure of the situation. And what I love about this team is they're ready to respond. Those are two heart-stomping, heartbreaking losses. Those are tough, and that would make a lot of teams fold. To be able to respond, you've got to own it first. And then you've got to be able to have perspective and keep things in perspective. And I think our guys have done a really good job of that. They've treated everything as a one-game championship season, and they've came to practice, continued to get better, keep pouring into each other, keep the team together, even though we've had some tough losses. We've also had some great wins. There's been a lot of different things that's up and down throughout the entire year that, if you're not a really close team, can destroy you or it can take you to places that you never even thought possible. So these guys have done a great job sticking together. Continue to have the perspective they have and then go fix it in practice and then go get better. And this team's always done that. Just continue to get better and I appreciate that about them. Yeah, when you look at, you know, The world has been talking about this, the college football expansion, 24 teams now. Do you like it? Do you hate it? Are you looking forward to it? I love it. What does that message look like to you? I think it's great. I think it's great for college football. I think that everything has been focused on the college football playoff or bust as you look at it. You're looking at bowl games and players are getting paid all this money and you're going to a bowl game. A lot of guys who go to the NFL opt out of those anyway or they've already transferred to another school with the portal. It's just hard to have that same team. A lot of times that team is not even the same team you even played with. bowl game. But when you look at expanding the 24 to 24 teams, one keeps fan bases engaged all the way through November. I mean, every game you're fighting for a spot in the college football playoff, right? Especially those at-large bids. A home game in Huntington Bank Stadium in early December. How great would that be for our community and for our student body and for the University of Minnesota? So there's so many reasons why I think it's really healthy for Minnesota. I look at it through that lens. There's going to be people who say it's not good for college football, but I think it is, especially if you move the season up. It allows us to have two bye weeks. Right now we have one bye week. And if you're talking about if you go to the college football playoff championship, you're halfway through the season right now. With one bye week. So you're talking about, that's a long time until you actually get to that part. If we move the season up, get some two byes in there, everybody has apples to apples based on the schedule of nine conference games, a crossover with a different conference, and you get two out-of-conference teams on your schedule. I think that helps with the parity, and I think that's what this is going to go to. And if it does, I love that formula. You won't miss the conference championship game. I haven't been in it yet, so I don't know what I'm missing. So, unfortunately, I can't speak on that. I'm just thinking from a fan's perspective. You won't miss it? You won't miss it? No, and I know you're excited. P.J. talked about the home playoff game in December. I know you're excited for the Gopher pregame show outside Huntington Bank Stadium for that game, Mr. Sacramento. Can't wait for that. Yeah, can't wait for that. You'll be such a treat that day. Listen, everybody will be so fired up that it'll warm me up, so I can't wait for that moment at Huntington Bank Stadium when the college football playoff expands to 24 teams. When we come back, We'll roll right along here on the P.J. Flex Show when we return. Tony Nelson, key piece of this offensive line, joins us on set. You don't want to miss that conversation when we come back. To the P.J. Flex Show. Welcome back to the P.J. Flex Show, everybody. As promised, joining us on set here, a key member of this Minnesota offensive line, Tony Nelson with us. Tony, appreciate you taking the time. Thanks for being on the show. Thank you. Let's start with what we saw against UCLA. Obviously, it was a hard-fought game. It didn't fall your guys' way. But what's been the message after that game amongst yourselves, the players, the coaches, about how hard you fought? Just gotta take one more step to get over the hump. Yeah, we come in every Sunday and we treat it the same whether we win or lose. We gotta treat it the same, we gotta flush what we need to work on and continue working on the rest of this week and preparing for the next game. And when you look at injuries, you know, talking about preparing for the next game, you know, guys are in the training room, guys are coming in. But then during the season, guys are actually out, you know, so you have a lot of guys shuffling in those conversations of the person you're used to talking to is different now. Now you got a different voice in your ear. What builds that trust, though, of the next man stepping up? Because I know every coach, you know, screams that next man up, next man up. But how do you guys in offensive line group stay together and say, hey, this is what we got to do? Yeah, I think the off-season preparation is the most important thing. You know, shuffling around different lineups with the O-line and being able to trust each other is super important for the offensive line position. So, you know, trusting your off-season preparation and then trusting the preparation during the week as well. P.J., when I shook Tony's hand a moment ago, I thought I felt my hand perhaps turn into a little bit of oatmeal. There's no doubt about it. This young man is a strong individual. How much have you enjoyed having him on the team and a key piece, again, of this offensive line? Again, you're not going to meet a better person, first and foremost, right? He got married in the offseason, which is awesome. Congratulations. Tony, thank you. Yep. And his wife's going to law school. So, I mean, these guys, I mean, talk about, you know, investing in people. These two you want to invest in. But he's also on our track team. It's been fun going over in the summer and watching him throw the shot and do those things like that. So he's a dual-sport athlete, but he is everything that the student-athlete experience is about. He's a wonderful football player. He's gotten better. He's grown into his role. He's earned everything that he's gotten. Nothing has ever been given to Tony. He has earned everything that he's gotten. He's a great teammate. He's very selfless. That'll take you really far in life. And then he's an unbelievable student. So you're talking about the student athlete, which doesn't get talked about enough these days. He's a perfect example of what it's like to be here at the University of Minnesota. Yeah, and I was going to say, like, I'm like Javon Tracy, and I talked to him last night. He's married. You know, you guys being married at this young of an age, how has this program actually helped that? Because, like, I don't think I could, I know I couldn't have been married in college, and you guys are doing it at a high clip. You guys are happy. You know, it's fun to see that happen. But, you know, how is this program, because I know PJ does a, you know, night with the coaches and their wives, and they're teaching you guys how to be men. So how has that helped you to, you know, walking into marriage? Yeah, you know, Coach Fleck always talks about this being a life program, and in so many different ways. Different aspects, it's prepared me to be a better man inside and outside of football. Yeah, PJ just mentioned a moment ago that shot put is also part of your athletic career. Track and field has been a big part of your life. What do you enjoy most about that, and how has one perhaps helped the other between track and football and vice versa? Yeah, you know, I love being on the track team. I'm extremely thankful that Coach Fleck gave me the opportunity to do it. And, you know, I think a lot of people don't realize how powerful of a movement You know, throwing is, and that not only helps in football, but also in track, both applying to each other. You know, it has to be extremely precise. You know, A five-inch off step can mean a TFL in football, and that can be the difference between a scratch or not in track. Do you have a personal best? What should we know about your personal best at shot put? Yeah, so in high school, you throw the 12-pound shot, and I threw it about 65 feet. And then in college, you throw the 16-pound shot, a little bit heavier, and I threw that about 60 feet. Do you want to try that? Can you pick that one up here? My wife's a track coach. I have, no, I've picked those things up. I have no want to ever try to throw a shot put, but. I'm holding the baby these days. I'm holding the baby these days. He's 16 pounds already. I think I, but I'm not throwing him. You can't throw your baby. That would be a different show. Full transparency, he's a dual sport athlete, but when he came to ask to be on the track team, I don't deserve the credit he gave me because. If he would have said I'm in the 100 and 200, I would have said absolutely not. Yeah. Absolutely not. We're not risking that injury piece, but if it helps him, which is great, because we talked about that, and I'm all for that. They'll be able to help in football and in track, and they're parallel, that's for sure. So have you talked to other offensive linemen about just coming to practice since that movement does help? Have your teammates ever asked you, like, hey, can we just come out to practice or can we come work out with you at track practice if we have nothing else to do? I think I brought one guy out my first summer. And he definitely realized that it was a lot more challenging than he thought. So he tapped out. Yeah. So let's transfer over to, you know, you're heading over to Penn State to play Penn State. You know, you guys have some great games in the past. I know, you know, PJ's had some great matchups against Penn State. But what do you see in this team? And, you know, how do you and the offensive line feel like, you know, what you need to do to get your job done? Yeah, I think just like every week, you know, the offensive line, we always emphasize running the ball. And I think that, you know, We always emphasize that and work on that throughout the week. So I think running the ball is really important. And then just being together as a team and winning all phases of the game. Now, I was told that farm living is a big part of your life. You grew up on a farm, is that correct? Yes. And farm work and living might be in your future as well, potentially? Tell us about growing up on the farm. Yeah. So I grew up on the farm by my uncle. I'm blessed that he allowed all of me and my siblings to help out on our family farm. And through that, you know, I developed a really big passion for agriculture. And then I ended up graduating three years with my ag business degree. And now I'm pursuing my master's in applied economics with an emphasis in agriculture. Student athlete. Again, student athlete. What is Tony doing on this set here? I mean, he's blowing us all out of the water. I don't even know if we can all match that. Hey, that is an awfully impressive resume. Tony, we appreciate you taking the time here on the PJ Flex Show. Continue your health and success the rest of the way. Thank you. Tony Nelson, everybody. I'm going to start studying on what it's like to be on the farm. Maybe that will be on a different show. But when we come back, we'll take a closer look at this weekend's opponent, the Gophers. Hit the road to take on Penn State. What's it going to take to knock off the Nittany Lions? We'll discuss that next on the PJ Flex Show. You're watching the PJ Flex Show. Welcome back to the P.J. Flex Show, everybody. It's time now to talk about this weekend's opponent, the Nittany Lions of Penn State coming to this contest, having won two games in a row. And, P.J., let's start with their quarterback, Rocco Becht, who's had a pretty strong season so far for the Nittany Lions. What do you notice about him when you study him on film? Well, he's had a really good career starting at Iowa State and playing for Matt Campbell there. He's really consistent. He's tough. He can run the ball. He can throw the ball. Kind of a jack-of-all-trades, so he can do a lot of things, and I think their whole offense runs through him, does a really good job seeing the field, and starts top-down. So, I mean, they always have an opportunity to throw to some explosive playmakers. And you look at Chase, you know, how do you contain that? You just saw with UCLA, you know, and you have that tape to go off of, so what are you looking at? I don't remember. Not looking at Penn State. Not looking at Penn State. You know, you talked about that, like RPOIs and keeping, you know, knowing where you're supposed to be when you're supposed to be there. So how have you kind of pushed that on these guys this week? Yeah, I mean, you learn. You really do. You create a scar and you move on, you know, and our guys have. And I think scars are part of life. It's part of growing up. It's part of development. It's not like I want you to get beat. It's not like you want to get beat. Not one person on that field last week wanted to lose that game Or be a part of why we lost. We lost that game, coach and player, but the scars are what harden you and make you better and you can grow from, and those are necessary in life, and again, we knew what would happen last week. We did everything we can this week and going to do everything we can to not let that happen again, but that's a team that's going to do everything they can to continue those types of explosive plays, so it's that chess match back and forth, but we've got to be really disciplined. We've got to be really fundamentally sound, and we've just got to do what we're coached to do, and we've got to coach it better. We do that, we'll be okay. What's it like when we're in November here and there's, it seems like a million five and four teams in the Big Ten now, right? Right in the middle. You're all fighting for the same things. Eventually, you're all going to be fighting for the same 19 at-large playoff spots. But you're fighting for bowl eligibility. You're fighting for which bowls you want to go to. How much do you think about that stuff in November? Well, I think November football, you earn an opportunity to play meaningful games, right? And it's championship month, right? And I think that's as you keep looking at how... The college football playoff is going to expand and change. This is exactly what we're talking about. And that's why these are gut-wrenching losses and historic wins, because they put it on a different level, because everything just continues to mean more and more and more as you keep moving through this thing. So we've got to focus on us. We've got to focus on what we can do to get better and play six seconds of football, right, and six total minutes of football. Within a 60-minute game, but the six seconds, go play it the best we possibly can play it and play it better than we did last week. And it truly is the focus. It sounds so boring and simple, but it truly is. Dissect it, learn from it, gain perspective, and then go change it. You talk about, you know, the internal being loud, external being quiet, because externally people are trying to say, like, oh, Penn State's not who they were. And, you know, how do you make sure guys don't take that game and say, hey, this is one we should win or this is an easy win? Oh, I don't think we've ever done that here. I mean, we don't even look at it that way. Like, we've never even talked to them about that, no matter if we're playing a top-five team or we're playing an unranked team. Thank you. Thank you. Everything is a one-game championship season, and it sounds so boring. But it's the ability to break the boring, right, and to get better and change your best no matter who you play because it's really us versus us. It's not just the opponent. You've got to play really well. And you got to execute at a really high level to win. They're going to do everything else to stop you. So the only thing you get to control is yourself. So if we can continue just to keep getting incrementally better, that gives us the best chance to win on Saturday. We'll see you next week for more of the BJ Flex Show. Everybody, thanks for joining us.