The Minnesota Gophers Football team held a press event on Saturday, December 28, before departing for Charlotte, North Carolina, to play Virginia Tech in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl. Head coach P.J. Fleck, offensive coordinator Greg Harbaugh, defensive coordinator Corey Hetherman, defensive lineman Jalen Logan-Redding, and quarterback Max Brosmer discussed the regular season, the transfer portal, and their upcoming game against the Hokies.
Here are the questions asked by this reporter and the answers received from the Gophers coaches and players at yesterday’s event.
Gophers Coaches Comments
Total Apex: So what does it say about the character of Max (Brosmer), your quarterback, who forgoes his preparation for his pro career to play with his guys?
Coach Fleck: Yeah, I wouldn’t even say it’s a preparation for his pro career. I think this is the beginning of his pro career. Max Brosmer is a player who loves playing football, period. The more he plays, the more people are going to fall in love with him. He’s a player that has to keep playing, and as he keeps playing, people are going to love watching him play football.
I mean, it is a lot of fun for a coach who’s been around the game a long time to watch a student-athlete like that embrace the game the way he embraces it. I don’t know if I’ve ever watched a student-athlete love the game more in the preparation process. I’m looking at former Gophers player Antoine Winfield Jr. with a big smile on his face right here. You look at Tyler Nubin, another former Gophers standout player, and the way he played the game, and I can go on and on. But enjoying the actual process, and dedicating hours and hours and hours a day to the grind of it, and loving that.
We’re walking off the field right now, and he wants to get this play installed, and we’re kind of saying, well, maybe. So to kind of sway the votes, he’s got the tight ends out there, and he’s teaching them the route concept exactly the way it needs to go because when we practice tomorrow, it’s make or break. But he wants it in, and it’s got to go really well for it to go in tomorrow, and that was the deal. So he’s out there making sure that it goes the way it needs to go. That’s the type of leader he is.
I think he’s going to play his way into not only NFL camps and being drafted and all that other stuff, but he’s going to be around that league for a long time because he’s going to make himself that way. There was no surprise when he said he was going to play. Everybody’s got to make decisions for themselves, and I understand that. And that doesn’t mean if you don’t, you don’t love football, and if you do, you do love football.
Speaking just for Max though, the more he plays, the more people are going to fall in love with him. Those are the reports I keep getting back from people, is the more he plays, we just love him.
Total Apex: Maybe something about your culture, where he wanted to stay with his teammates, and there’s not a right or wrong here, but maybe saying something about your culture that he’s here for one year and he still wants to stay with the guys.
Coach Fleck: Well, culture starts with the people and starts with the players. Period. You can’t have a culture without the players. I think that that’s what’s really unique about here is: we talked about the bowl prep needs to be really fun. Well funs earned, and the F for that is for each other. It has to be for each other. Can’t be for anybody else. It’s got to be for each other. And the players are out there doing the work, the players are out there practicing, the players are out there sacrificing, and it’s got to be a lot of fun for them in the process.
I think Gerrit Chernoff and our staff do a really good job of making the bowl experience, to your question Dave, a lot of fun to be in. They want to be in bowl prep. Last night we took them to a movie. It sounds crazy, I know they can go get their own movie ticket these days and go to their own movie, but there’s something about still renting out the theater, being around each other, having popcorn, having snacks, and watching a movie.
I think it just says a lot about the connection of this team, from the staff down to the players and backup. I think that’s really, really fun to see. And I know everybody’s really excited to get on that airplane, head to Charlotte, see Danny Morrison and his staff, and go out there and meet all the Duke’s Mayo people as well.
Total Apex: Greg, some of your best offensive games were down the stretch against tougher teams. Is that a combination of you working with Max, finding out how to use the players, and also helping and putting them in situations where they’ll succeed?
Coach Harbaugh: No, I think it’s just, I don’t know. Because I look at every single week when we go out there, I’d be so excited to see how our guys could execute that particular game plan. You go into the last game against Wisconsin, and that game plan was significantly different than Penn State. Penn State, I was so excited about because there were so many moving parts to it.
I don’t know if it was necessarily…I think it was comfortability with the quarterback; as every game went on, we just got more comfortable with each other, and it happened quickly. It was really Rhode Island when we started to see it. North Carolina, he got settled in, and it just kept getting better every single week. I think it’s just execution. Daniel Jackson playing really well, Elijah Spencer playing really well. The offensive line, when they needed to come together, they did.
That Wisconsin game was a culmination to a season where we had some ups and downs, but you really look at the whole thing, if you don’t turn the ball over in a few games, it could have been dramatically different. We know that as an offense, we have to be able to change that. But it was just fun. As you reflect on the whole year, I haven’t really sat there and thought and reflected on all twelve games, and now thirteen, of how it really went, but it was just fun to coach these guys. Fun to coach the quarterback. It’s fun to be around him and see how he impacts the young guys in the room, too.
Total Apex: Corey, you faced another team with a multiple option quarterback, lot of play action passes, RPOs, things like that. Is the strategy sort of to shut down the run, contain, and then make them beat you through the air?
Coach Hetherman: Yeah, we’re always going to try to make sure stop the run is number one. Every single week, try to make the team one-dimensional. Try to stay ahead of the sticks. Try to force them into the situations where they have to throw the football. Now this week, especially no matter which quarterbacks really on the field, all three of them move the sticks with their feet. They can extend plays.
