Gophers' PJ Fleck: Without NIL money, we can't keep team intact

The competitive balance of college football has rapidly changed and it's hurting Minnesota.

The transfer portal and Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) money have changed college football forever, and Minnesota Golden Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck believes it's impossible to keep a roster intact and difficult to recruited talented players without pockets stuffed with sponsorship money. 

"Things have completely changed and I think people have to put their head around them in college football of 2021 is not even close to where college football is in 2023. Especially in roster management, depth," Fleck said at his Monday press conference, 48 hours after his Gophers were crushed 49-30 by a Purdue team that had two wins and hadn't scored more than 14 points in a game in more than a month. 

Fleck elaborated when he appeared as a guest on KFAN radio in the Twin Cities later Monday morning and was asked if Minnesota's NIL money is "non-existent."

"I wouldn't say non-existent. I think we have so many donors and boosters and friends of our program and alumni who care so much about us that have done a great job of donating to NIL. But in the new NIL world, if you're not the leader in NIL and not have the NIL funds, 1) you're not going to be able to keep your team intact and 2) you're not going to be able to bring anyone in. That's the facts of it. It's NFL free agency with no salary cap and no rules. That's the simple fact of it," Fleck said. 

"You can look around the country and some of our best players that were here are best players somewhere else. And not only that, guys that are on our team right now, I hope we can hang on to. And we're going to do everything we can to do that. But the new world, like college football in 2023 and 2024 coming up with the new Big Ten, it's not even close to where college football was in 2021. It's a completely different era, and that's what matters. Whether you like it or don't like, you disagree or agree with it, that is what is driving college football right now. 

"And people are stacking up and loading up on their rosters with massive NIL. I think [athletics director Mark Coyle], our athletic department, have done a great job of making people aware of it. This year was definitely better than last year in what we've been able to raise with NIL, our collective is doing a great job. That's the No. 1 most important thing right now in holding onto your roster and creating a roster right now as this whole new era of college football shapes into the future."

Oct 21, 2023; Iowa City, Iowa, USA; Minnesota Golden Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck watches a replay against the Iowa Hawkeyes during the first quarter at Kinnick Stadium.  / Credit: Jeffrey Becker-USA TODAY Sports

Fleck's latest commentary is similar to what he said in September, warning that Minnesota will lose players in the transfer portal to teams that flat out pay them more money in NIL agreements. 

"That is the fact of life. And I know that we all laugh at it but that is a fact. So if we want to keep players, all these guys we have, they won't be here next year. Just making sure everybody understands. Our fans, [the good players] won't be here. We'll be a Triple-A ballclub for somebody else. That is the reality and the truth of the situation," Fleck said Sept. 26. 

Name, image, likeness money paid to Gophers players goes through Dinkytown Athletes, a collective that allows athletes to take advantage of business opportunities linked to their identity. 

There are currently 70 student-athletes linked with Dinkytown Athletes, including 16 members of the football team. Specific endorsements for each athlete aren't listed, but recently there have been Gophers football and basketball players endorsing 7th Avenue Pizza. 

🚨👀🍕〽️Gopher Fans〽️🍕👀🚨

Purchase @7thavenuepizza from @HolidayStations between now and November 12th to support #Gophers athletes‼️

Money is donated to @dtathletes on every pizza sold, LET'S GO MN 🍕👀‼️ pic.twitter.com/jufnnoUene

— Cody Lindenberg (@cody_lindenberg) November 9, 2023

But while some Gopher athletes are promoting pizzas, the big dogs of college sports are promoting huge brands. For example, Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders, according to On3, has NIL deals with the likes of Mercedes-Benz, Gatorade, Beats By Dre, Urban Outfitters and Under Armour. 

Jimbo Fisher's firing shows how low the bar is for P.J. Fleck at Minnesota

Fox Sports' Joel Klatt recently speculated that Sanders could earn $10 million in NIL money next year at the University of Colorado. Sanders has millions of followers on social media, which makes him more valuable to advertisers.

The more popular an athlete is, the more valuable they are to companies who are willing to fork over piles of cash for brand promotion. That's literally written on the FAQ page of Dinkytown Athletes... 

"While Dinkytown Athletes exists to help provide University of Minnesota student-athletes with Name, Image and Likeness opportunities, we are still a business entity and as such we need to make business decisions to ensure the health and long term viability of our growing business. This means that our decisions related to who signs on and what opportunities they are provided ultimately have to make business sense, they have to bring value to the company with the things that they do. We have to spend the money that we have access to in ways that will result in a growth in our business, some student-athletes provide greater growth opportunities for the business and are compensated [SIC] appropriate based on that potential."

Nick Saban, the seven-time national champion coach at Alabama, decried the situation earlier this year when he said the issue is going to get worse. 

"What we have now is we have some states and some schools in some states are investing a lot more money in terms of managing their roster than others, and I think this is going to create a real competitive disadvantage for some in the future. And it’s also going to create an imbalance in the competitive nature of the sport, which that’s not good for the sport," Saban said. 

Saban added that "if you think there’s disparity in college football right now, there’s going to be a lot more in the future."

What happened against Purdue?

Fleck said the blowout loss to Purdue was partially due to injuries forcing inexperienced players into the game. The Gophers were banged up at linebacker with Cody Lindenberg held out by medical staff and Maverick Baranowski exiting the game in the first quarter with an injury. 

Those injuries forced true freshman linebacker Matt Kingsbury into action. Kingsbury hadn't played a snap of college football before stepping onto the field in West Lafayette, Indiana on Saturday. 

"Unfortunately, some of our best players are out. It seems like every week the inconsistency of who's actually out there...again, there's no excuses, it 100% falls on the coaches and what we have to do to get them better," said Fleck.

"We're playing people probably ahead of when they should play," Fleck continued. "I know it's not where everybody wants it to be, but the Year 7 piece, that doesn't make a lot of sense when you're talking about 'It's Year 7, we should be X, Y and Z.' With the portal and NIL and all those things, we knew we had an experienced team last year, this team was going to get a lot younger, a lot more inexperienced really quickly, especially with the way we run our program.

"We showed our team that yesterday. There's a bunch of different teams that have had 10 wins, 9 wins, 11 wins, whatever and then boom, there's a year they had to be able to get maybe an injury bug or they had to be able to get a little younger first and that's what we've showed them, that it happens all over the country to a lot of different teams."

Minnesota needs one more win to become bowl eligible. That means they need to upset No. 1 Ohio State this Saturday in Minneapolis or beat Wisconsin in regular season finale on Nov. 25.