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Fleck Lessons?

KleinTxHusker

All Big 10
15 Year Member
I think this absolutely needs to be on the Husker board...

Fleck has been long pilloried on this board and has more than his share of critics... and quite frankly, I am not sure I like him much at all...

But... He took over a scandal plagued program (not safe for work if you can recall)... where a number of players got kicked off the team under a sort of Title IX situation.
  • Jerry Kill and his crew - who he followed, and had once worked for - dissed him pretty heavily.
  • His first year against us and MR; his QB goes for 183 yards on 10 carries and 3 TDs and promptly gets benched and run off... they beat us 54-21
  • Last year, we smoke them 53-28; Ziggy torches them early, they stay in the game Morgan gets them late... Fleck promptly fires is Defensive Coordinator and they go on to finish the season well and are now 6-0 this season.
  • Last night they dominated us in every phase of the game, and in areas they were supposedly were weak and we were strong. Particularly the run game with an alleged weak O-Line and our D-line being strong.
Sounds like he is opportunistic and interested in self preservation - hence willing to make changes and not a very loyal person...

Not sure I like that, and not implying anything otherwise, but our encounters and outcomes with him in two years / three season have been instructive to say the least.
 
I think this absolutely needs to be on the Husker board...

Fleck has been long pilloried on this board and has more than his share of critics... and quite frankly, I am not sure I like him much at all...

But... He took over a scandal plagued program (not safe for work if you can recall)... where a number of players got kicked off the team under a sort of Title IX situation.
  • Jerry Kill and his crew - who he followed, and had once worked for - dissed him pretty heavily.
  • His first year against us and MR; his QB goes for 183 yards on 10 carries and 3 TDs and promptly gets benched and run off... they beat us 54-21
  • Last year, we smoke them 53-28; Ziggy torches them early, they stay in the game Morgan gets them late... Fleck promptly fires is Defensive Coordinator and they go on to finish the season well and are now 6-0 this season.
  • Last night they dominated us in every phase of the game, and in areas they were supposedly were weak and we were strong. Particularly the run game with an alleged weak O-Line and our D-line being strong.
Sounds like he is opportunistic and interested in self preservation - hence willing to make changes and not a very loyal person...

Not sure I like that, and not implying anything otherwise, but our encounters and outcomes with him in two years / three season have been instructive to say the least.

He's a tool no doubt. That said, I'm not sure that evaluating your staff and making changes where you feel they're needed makes him a disloyal person. Especially in a results based profession like coaching where there really is no loyalty for the most part. All coaches are into self preservation to some extent, they have to be. Scott will have to seriously evaluate his staff in the very near future and he might have to make some changes. I don't think most people would consider him to be a disloyal person. Most would see it for what it was, a head coach trying to improve his program.

One thing I do kind of like about Fleck, he's very fiery on the sidelines and that seems to translate to his team. The Gophers were fired up for the entire game and they played and coached with way more intensity than we did.
 
Fleck is quirky, but he is an executive type that breathes competency and team building. The guy is all M from day one. He's also 6-0 because of his strengths, which is making the hard decisions when he has to make them. There is no reason to doubt he will go to a better program after Minnesota with his trail of success. The guy doesn't deserve half the criticisms people throw at him and quite frankly it shows more about the person making the comment than about him.
 



Nothing wrong with needing to make changes if that's what it takes to win. Frost's inner challenge, I believe, will come down to making the right changes in time.

His vision is heavy in the Tom Osborne way, which isn't a bad thing. But no 2 situations are ever completely alike; knowing when they aren't and when something different is required and then doing it is key.

The Nebraska way Scott and almost all of us love is a lot more than winning. That's what makes it special. But it starts with excellence. The excellence is what makes the rest of it noteworthy.
 
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He's a tool no doubt. That said, I'm not sure that evaluating your staff and making changes where you feel they're needed makes him a disloyal person. Especially in a results based profession like coaching where there really is no loyalty for the most part. All coaches are into self preservation to some extent, they have to be. Scott will have to seriously evaluate his staff in the very near future and he might have to make some changes. I don't think most people would consider him to be a disloyal person. Most would see it for what it was, a head coach trying to improve his program.

One thing I do kind of like about Fleck, he's very fiery on the sidelines and that seems to translate to his team. The Gophers were fired up for the entire game and they played and coached with way more intensity than we did.

This has been missing from Nebraska's sidelines for a while. Losing your crap isn't a good look, but coaching with fire and demanding fire from your players isn't a bad thing. Frost isn't fiery like that, nor was Osborne, but someone on this staff has to get everyone's attention or we're going to wallow in this crap for a while.
 
I can't stand the guy, but he's got a method and he runs it . . . and seems to be a "do it my way or I'll find someone who will" coach. And he at least gets hardnosed effort out of his guys to a high degree. You think Jaimes and Farniok would be starting under Fleck this far into a season the way they've played? Not a chance.

There's too much "we keep waiting for them to get it" going on right now with the starters. Time for some dudes to sit and if you don't have guys itching to come in with their hair on fire then we have even bigger problems.
 
I can't stand the guy, but he's got a method and he runs it . . . and seems to be a "do it my way or I'll find someone who will" coach. And he at least gets hardnosed effort out of his guys to a high degree. You think Jaimes and Farniok would be starting under Fleck this far into a season the way they've played? Not a chance.

There's too much "we keep waiting for them to get it" going on right now with the starters. Time for some dudes to sit and if you don't have guys itching to come in with their hair on fire then we have even bigger problems.

Let's make the next two weeks of prep like an extended Fall Camp. Play for your position on the depth chart. Holding pat isn't going to beat Indiana and the likely means a bowl is no longer an option. Make every kid on the roster earn his PT and see who wants to play football.
 



The Nebraska way Scott and almost all of us love is a lot more than winning. That's what makes it special. But it starts with excellence. The excellence is what makes the rest of it noteworthy.

Good points. The Nebraska way is about more than winning....but if it didn't eventually lead to winning, it wouldn't be noteable, either. Nobody's too impressed by a Nebraska way that results in perpetual .500 seasons.
 
I will never say anything bad about PJ Fleck again.

He knows how to coach football. I don’t respond to his rah rah motto laden style, but he coaches positive and preaches getting better everyday.
 



MR responded to his critics by firing coaches, and I hated to see that. People pounding on the gates with their torches and pitchforks should not dictate a head coach's decisions. Scott is loyal, as was Dr. Tom. He'll know when changes are needed, and I don't see it coming anytime soon, nor should it.
 
This has been missing from Nebraska's sidelines for a while. Losing your crap isn't a good look, but coaching with fire and demanding fire from your players isn't a bad thing. Frost isn't fiery like that, nor was Osborne, but someone on this staff has to get everyone's attention or we're going to wallow in this crap for a while.

I pointed this out last night. Sometimes, a group of 18-24 year olds may need a fire lit under their butts. Riley was too Mr. Rogers and Bo was a little too much the other direction.

Frost is showing too much Riley and not enough Bo and players may be coming onto the field a little too nonchalant. There is no sense of urgency. Late in the game, the team started playing like scoring was important to them, presumably because they wanted to avoid a shutout, and they started moving the ball. They were playing “all-out” and having some success.

Whether it is other players, or coaches, someone better start lighting fires under these players to make them realize that less than 100% effort on every play is not acceptable and won’t cut it in the B1G.
 
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MR responded to his critics by firing coaches, and I hated to see that. People pounding on the gates with their torches and pitchforks should not dictate a head coach's decisions. Scott is loyal, as was Dr. Tom. He'll know when changes are needed, and I don't see it coming anytime soon, nor should it.
I don't claim to know if he should fire any coaches. I don't know enough football at this level to know with any certainty what he needs to do. Clearly though things aren't improving as fast as a coach of Frost's apparent skill might achieve or even what he himself seemed to expect.

Clearly it's up to him to decide what if any changes to make and when to make them, whether sooner or later or not at all, in contrast to your last sentence. My only point is he needs to not be so beholden to the Nebraska way that he doesn't make them when he should.

I'm not going anywhere. We can go 0-12 for 5 years with Scott making no changes and I still won't want him fired because I believe we have nowhere else to go. Not everyone will be that patient though. I don't want Frost to be hamstrung by Nebraska's past and the beginning of his own narrative here. I hope he feels free to make whatever changes to his staff or his system or his philosophies that will lead to eventual success.
 
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