P.J. Fleck 'will not accept losing,' calls moral victories 'rat poison'

After carrying leads into halftime against North Carolina and Iowa only to lose both, the Gophers showed they can keep up with the No. 10 team in college football despite playing terribly for the first 30 minutes.

P.J. Fleck / GopherSports on YouTube /

Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck was very on-brand to open his weekly Monday press conference, starting with a five-minute monologue about Saturday's 27-24 loss to Michigan.

"We really haven't played 60 minutes of elite football yet, which gives up hope and excitement as we keep going forward," Fleck said. "You have to be really good at losing to continue to find ways to win — and I am not accepting losing. What I am saying is you have to understand that when you do lose, you're going to learn the most."

Minnesota outscored the Wolverines 21-6 in the second half, as their comeback attempt came up just short following a controversial offsides call on an onside kick attempt. It has now become a theme of the Gophers season to play great football for one half, but not the whole game.

With a 21-3 deficit on the road against the defending national champions, it would've been really easy for the Gophers to mail it in after halftime. They did not do that and they came out and showed that there is a very small margin for why they are 2-3 rather than 3-2 or even 4-1.

"Our players, I cannot give them enough credit for how hard they played in the second half, the resiliency they showed," Fleck said. "Because that's going to stay with them through life. That's going to stay with them as husbands and fathers and adults, leaders of their family, when they go through really, really dark and tragic and hard times. That showed what type of character those guys have."

After carrying leads into halftime against North Carolina and Iowa only to lose both, the Gophers showed they can keep up with the No. 10 team in college football despite playing terribly for the first 30 minutes.

"We're all over moral victories, I think you can all understand that about me, there are no moral victories," Fleck said. "When you're getting told, 'Man that was such a great fight, oh that was so amazing' from the external, which is fine, you can have that in the moment. But then after that, that can be just as much rat poison as winning that game and getting pat on the back, great job."

Things will not get any easier for Fleck and the Gophers as they will now host No. 11-ranked USC under the lights this Saturday at Huntington Bank Stadium. Odds makers currently project the Trojans as 9.5-point favorites.