Minnesota Football: Can 2020 Gophers match success from 2019?

Minnesota football won 11 games last season. Can the Gophers and PJ Fleck prove that last season was no fluke but a trend?

A counterpunch is one that you do not see coming. A fighter unloads their best offense only to be knocked down by a punch they never saw. That’s what the Minnesota Golden Gophers did last season. They counterpunched everyone.  Some thought they would be okay after a solid 2018, but no one saw 11 wins last season.

That is for two reasons. For many, head coach PJ Fleck is an acquired taste. It is hard to doubt his resume, however. He took a one-win Western Michigan team and, in four seasons, turned them into a one-loss team playing Wisconsin in the Cotton Bowl, finishing ranked No. 15 in the country.

Fleck parlayed that into the Minnesota head coaching job. When he was hired, fans were in two camps, those who thought Tracy Claeys coached himself into that job, and those who were still sore the Gophers fired Glenn Mason in the first place.

Many college football writers thought the 13-1 record at Western Michigan was a fluke, and he would not stick around long at Minnesota. Yet, here we are in year four of the Fleck experience at Minnesota, and he’s still looking to prove people wrong.

Can Fleck and the Gophers make another run like they did last season?