COLUMN: Fleck may be zany, but he's ours

   People have called University of Minnesota football coach P.J. Fleck a lot of things.

   Zany. Over the top. A phony. A show-off. About himself.

   I call him this: a winner.

   I can’t explain how, but this high-strung goofball of a coach has made a bunch of college kids buy in to “row the boat” and other oddities, to the point where the Golden Gophers are winning more than they have in decades.

   It’s very likely if he were coaching any other team, I would be in the camp of those who dislike Fleck, or worse.

   Instead, as a Minnesota native and Gopher fan first and foremost, I’m grateful. He has led the Gophers to three straight bowl games, and three straight wins in those games.

   After two mediocre seasons, his 2019 team won 11 games for the first time since the 1904 Gophers went 13-0. It was also the first 10-win season since 2003, and only the second since 1905, according to sports-reference.com.

   Take away the 3-4 aberration for COVID in 2020, and his teams have now clinched a fourth straight winning season, two of those with nine wins or more.

   It’s a far cry from what used to be the Gopher football formula: schedule four cupcakes at the start of the season to go 4-0, then somehow steal two Big Ten wins to finish 6-6 and get to a low-rate bowl game.

   This year, they are 7-3, and part of the four-team logjam at the top of the Big Ten West Division.

   It doesn’t change the fact that to other teams, coaches and fans, Fleck is an annoyance.

   Apparently, he managed to annoy Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz two years ago in the annual Floyd of Rosedale rivalry game, by calling a timeout late in a blowout loss, allowing the Gophers to score and avoid a shutout.

   Ferentz responded by unnecessarily using all three of his timeouts in the closing seconds, leading 35-7, and told reporters afterward: “Figured we’d take Floyd with us and leave the timeouts here.”

   It added a little juice to what has recently been a one-sided rivalry: Iowa has beaten Minnesota seven straight times heading into Saturday’s game in Minneapolis.

   And while I remain an unflinching defender of Ferentz’s truly legendary career, this is one time I hope he comes out on the short end.

   Fleck is a zany coach, but he’s our zany coach.

   Here’s hoping the Gophers, and Fleck, annoy their way to a victory. Ski-U-Mah.