David Hookstead
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Minnesota football coach P.J. Fleck has a bone to pick with the Wisconsin coaching staff.
On National Signing Day, Fleck gave a rundown of the class the Gophers had signed, and out of nowhere, the Minnesota head coach started ranting how the Badgers had tried to flip Martin Owusu with “negative” recruiting tactics.
“Wisconsin even kind of came in and tried to flip him early. Showed me all the text messages of them doing everything they can to negative recruit, negative recruit, negative recruit to flip us, and it didn’t work. We axed it,” Fleck told the media Wednesday.
He further expanded on the situation and added, “That’s what’s great. You get to see all the text messages. That’s the best part of negative recruiting. You get to see all these grown negative recruit in text messages. It’s beautiful. Appreciate everyone sharing those with us because we don’t negative recruit, and it’s really interesting to see that.”
Does this make P.J. Fleck look soft?
I’m not much for complaining, and we all know complaining doesn’t really have a place in college sports. You want to complain, find a different profession.
It’s that simple. Do you hear Nick Saban getting up to the podium and ranting and raving about having to compete for recruits? Absolutely not.
I guess P.J. Fleck just has a different kind of energy.
Furthermore, negative recruiting tactics have existed forever. Some programs are haves and others are have nots. Even as a Wisconsin man, I can set aside my bias, analyze the situation and recognize the program in Madison is substantially better than Minnesota.
That’s just a fact, and the numbers back it up. Since 2005, the Badgers have had 10 double digit win seasons and have finished the season ranked 12 times.
In the same period of time, Minnesota has one double digit win season and has finished ranked once. If Wisconsin coaches, who are Minnesota’s bitter rivals, don’t point out the obvious success gap, they should be fired for negligence of duty.
If Fleck doesn’t want coaches to tell recruits the Gophers aren’t a great program, win more games. It’s shocking, but it’s also simple.
Until then, you can count on the Badgers and every other team gunning for the same recruits to use “negative” recruiting tactics.
“Recruiting” is just a notch above human trafficking. That said, PJ realizes that Fickell is going to be a different breed o’ cat from kindly “Ol’ Uncle Paul Cryst”…and he is firing a warning shot across Luke’s bow. …. should be fun to watch!
Nick Saban 100% complained about, not necessarily negative recruiting, but absolutely he did about the ability to compete with the money Texas A&M was able to pay.
https://www.si.com/college/2022/05/31/nick-saban-addresses-texas-a-m-comments-sec-spring-meetings-jimbo-fisher
c’mon man, do better
Eh, I’m cool with Fleck saying this. If you run a clean shop, and don’t trash other teams via text or otherwise, then I think it’s fine to call out the ones that do. Let them know you have receipts and won’t forget.
Universal Imaginary Truisms : (1) All Power5 Schools “cheat” in recruiting EXCEPT “My School” ….. …. (2) All politicians are corrupt EXCEPT the ones I vote for. …….. LOLOLOL
Come on David, what do think Saban’s rant about Texas A&M was about. It was about recruiting in the NIL era. If that was not a complaint, I don’t know what is.