P.J. Fleck defends decision to keep playing starters late in blowout win

Fleck kept his starters in with a big lead over Maryland on Saturday.

Oct 26, 2024; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; Minnesota Golden Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck looks on during the first half against the Maryland Terrapins at Huntington Bank Stadium. / Matt Krohn-Imagn Images

P.J. Fleck kept his starters in the game late in Saturday's blowout 48-23 win over Maryland, a decision he said came from the scars of previous blown leads. The Gophers led 48-16 for much of the fourth quarter, although the Terrapins did score a touchdown to make it a 25-point final margin.

Afterwards, Fleck defended the decision, saying his job is to win football games.

"Well, I wanted to be able to take (the starters) out right around the four, five-minute mark," Fleck said. "You're counting possessions. And again, listen, with all due respect, we have to play 60 minutes of football. You get a point where you want to do that, but I've also watched Illinois come back on us last year, watched Northwestern come back on us last year. You watch these things that stay. My heart is only so big, right? They say it's like your fist. And deep within all these pieces of your heart are memories that have left it damaged, scarred. And when you're playing a team — you saw them, touchdown, touchdown — I would love to pull them out early, but my job is to find a way to go win a football game, and teach them to go finish games."

In the 2023 Northwestern game Fleck referenced, the Gophers led 31-10 but allowed three touchdowns in the fourth quarter and lost in overtime. Even if there was little chance of Minnesota blowing a 32-point lead with five minutes or so left, he wanted to be sure his team finished strong.

"Looks like we're all good, that's a good thing, but it's not like you have to sit there and say 'OK, I'm risking something.'" Fleck said. "You're playing football. We pulled them out with about two minutes to go, they ended up getting a touchdown, but we also have a lot of people who are rotating. You can say the starters, but we're rotating a lot of players, even on the offensive side. They just went down and scored. They're three possessions (away), when you have some onside kicks, next thing you know...

"My job is to find a way to go win football games, and that's what I believe. It's football. You've all been around me before, I've pulled starters in fourth quarters, I've pulled starters at the end of the third quarter. This one, we've gotta find ways to be able to finish football games. We didn't finish against North Carolina. We didn't finish that football game. You go back and you look at Michigan, we didn't start fast. We gotta get used to playing 60 minutes of football in a game. We've got four left. We're gonna make a heck of a sprint, and then at the end of those, we'll look up and see where we're at."

Fleck said the Gophers had around 150 alums of the program run out of the tunnel with the team before Saturday's homecoming game at Huntington Bank Stadium. "That's what this is all about," he said.

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