After 14 practices, Minnesota head coach P.J. Fleck met with the media on Tuesday to discuss the Gophers’ fall camp progress, the team’s culture, emerging talent, and more. ‘Selfless’ continues to be a buzzword surrounding this year’s Gophers On Tuesday, the Minnesota Golden Gophers held their 14th practice of fall camp, and are now just […]
After 14 practices, Minnesota head coach P.J. Fleck met with the media on Tuesday to discuss the Gophers’ fall camp progress, the team’s culture, emerging talent, and more.
‘Selfless’ continues to be a buzzword surrounding this year’s Gophers
On Tuesday, the Minnesota Golden Gophers held their 14th practice of fall camp, and are now just 16 days away from their 2025 season opener on August 28 against the Buffalo Bulls. After Tuesday’s practice, Minnesota head coach P.J. Fleck met with the Minnesota media to discuss his team’s progression through camp.
“They’re an obsessive team, and they’re fun to coach,” Fleck said about his squad. “The more you give them, the better they do. They’re really connected.”
The Gophers have shown in fall camp that they’re a selfless team as well.
“We talk about multipliers, that you don’t really care who gets the credit,” Fleck continued. “They genuinely want the other guy to do well, and then they make sure that guy’s doing well, which is a very selfless team.”
Gophers still “a lot of check marks” left to hit before August 28
With just over two weeks to go until toe meets leather, Fleck was asked to assess where his team is in fall camp at this juncture.
“A lot of check marks we wanna hit,” Fleck said.
“Being in the stadium as much as possible. We’re here today, obviously. But we have our mock game coming up. We’ve got a night practice on Thursday in the stadium, which is gonna simulate game day two weeks from kickoff, exact time we’ll start practice when kickoff starts.”
Preparation for the season, he added, goes beyond the daily practices and on-field milestones. The Gophers’ coaching staff is also entering the phase where they’ll make roster decisions
“We do a lot of those things. Roster movements, things like that, we’ll start doing.”
Homegrown pieces to have “massive impact” for Gophers
It’s no secret that the Golden Gophers have made it a priority to keep in-state talent home when it comes to recruiting, and after struggling to have success early on in the Fleck era, the Gophers have seen their efforts pay off in big ways over recent cycles.
This fall, Fleck expects those homegrown talents to have a big impact on the Gophers’ season.
“I expect them to have a massive impact,” Fleck said. “When we first got here, it was really hard recruiting in-state talent. We said that it was gonna have to take cultural sustainability for anybody, not just me, to keep in-state talent over a long period of time, because you wanna see proof.”
“I think in-state kids wanna see proof,” he continued to explain. “You know, when you’ve had seven coaches in 15 years before we got here, that’s a hard sell when you have your rivals having cultural sustainability. So I think we needed to create that here. I think the more we’ve created that, the more young people are willing to stay home in the state of Minnesota.”
But while recruiting is one part of the puzzle, development is another, and the Gophers have done a great job of developing those key in-state talents. “Then you watch guys like the Carter Coughlins and the Barbers, they start setting the path for everybody else.”
“Then all of a sudden, it becomes infectious. Then it becomes the cool thing to do in-state. It becomes a, we should all do that instead of just talk,” he said. “And I think that’s really important. So we’re excited about what we’re doing. We’re excited about the classes we continue to have from the state of Minnesota and look forward to keeping that tradition going here. All right, thank you guys.”
On Kahlee Tafai’s development
One key piece of the Gophers’ puzzle offensively this season could be Washington transfer Kahlee Tafai. The redshirt sophomore committed to the program out of the transfer portal this winter and missed all spring practice recovering from an injury and surgery. Now, in fall camp, he’s competing with redshirt freshman Nathan Roy for the starting left tackle position.
“I think he’s really built himself. You know, his off-season, he had a surgery, overcame that. So we had to expedite his process,” Fleck said about Tafai. ” But it still had to be a process, You couldn’t just throw him into the fire.”
“But Kahlee’s done a great job of absorbing all of that,” continued. “He’s more mature than he got here. The O-line’s really kind of brought him in. Again, it’s more of that multiplier than just an adder. But his whole game, he’s really athletic. He’s really strong. He loves football.”
While Tafai has been healthy this fall camp, he is still working himself back into playing shape after being sidelined since late last season. ” We just gotta keep going with him and get him in that playing shape, and should be really good.”
On Darius Taylor’s growth
Fleck was asked about what he’s seen out of his third-year running back Darius Taylor on Tuesday, and unsurprisingly, the Gophers’ head coach lauded the Michigan native.
“Darius Taylor, he’s a phenomenal leader, phenomenal human being, but I think he’s grown a lot as a tailback,’ Fleck said.
While Taylor has been tremendous for Minnesota in his first two years, totaling over 2,200 yards from scrimmage in 18 career games, he’s only truly scratching the surface of his potential.
“When you look at it, this is really his fourth year ever playing running back, and I think we sometimes forget about that,” he continued. “That he was a high school wide receiver until his senior year. So I’ve just seen a lot of growth. It’s the reading, it’s the diagnosing. His pass pro is better than it’s ever been, and just his leadership with that whole room. He makes that room better. He’s a multiplier.”
Taylor remains a strong receiving threat despite the move to running back, recording 53 receptions and over 300 receiving yards last year for the Gophers. But P.J. Fleck has liked the improvements he’s seen out of his tailback when it comes to his talents on the ground.
“Obviously, he’s been a really good receiver. But I think just seeing the cuts, reading it, exploding through contact, getting the hard two, hard three, that’s what I see from him.”
On the Gophers’ progress on offense
The Gophers’ offense has been under the microscope this offseason as the program oversaw not only a change at quarterback going from Max Brosmer to Drake Lindsey but also an overhaul at wide receiver. Through 14 practices, P.J. Fleck likes what he’s seen from Greg Harbaugh Jr’s unit.
“They’re growing, they’re growing,” Fleck said. “I think they’re a way closer unit than they were from the spring. You talk about guys who keep multiplying each other. I keep bringing up that word, but that’s what they’re actually doing.”
“They don’t really care who gets the credit. If they stay obsessed and they stay selfless, they got a chance to be really good,” he continued.
Fleck also believes the Gophers’ offense as a whole has a chance to be more explosive in 2025.
“I really do, I think we’ve got some of them,” Fleck said when asked about a handful of players who have the capability to bring that explosiveness to the Gophers’ offense. ” Maybe players that maybe people haven’t heard much about. I’m not saying people haven’t heard about Koi, but the Jalen Smiths of the world. A lot of people don’t know much about him, but they’re gonna find out really quick,” he said.
Echoing what Greg Harbaugh Jr. said about the Gophers’ offense last week, Fleck is excited about the number of players who could make an impact this season.
“And I think that’s what’s fun about our whole offense is,” he said. “I think last year you pointed to maybe two or three people, you’re like, all right, these are the two, three guys that can make plays, whether it was Daniel or Elijah or Darius. Here, I think that maybe we have three times as many guys that can all function with the offense, make plays, be an explosive playmaker.”
But for the Gophers’ offense to have that level of impact, the offense as a whole will have to remain selfless.
“And again, it goes back, if we can stay selfless and stay multipliers throughout the whole season and not care who gets a credit, this can be a really good offense.”
Category: General Sports
