PJ Fleck says Athan Kaliakmanis' disaster game is part of the process

Average and even bad quarterback play has been the norm for the Gophers for decades.

Growing pains. That's how Minnesota Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck is viewing redshirt sophomore quarterback Athan Kaliakmanis after his disastrous performance in Minnesota's 31-13 loss to North Carolina on Saturday. 

"Execution sounds like a really cheap answer, but it's truly just throwing to the open guy. We're that close. If you go back and watch the film, we're a foot off on most throws," Fleck said Monday. "These are the small increments that cost you a game against a top-20 team. It costs you the explosive plays. We're not far off, but it's not easy to win and it's not easy to score points against really good defenses."

Kaliakmanis completed 11 of 29 passes for 133 yards and an interception. He threw another five or so passes that could've been picked off and he was inaccurate on numerous throws that could've led to important first downs and explosive plays. 

"What is it his eighth game total and first year being a starter? If you expected that to come out like Joe Montana all of a sudden just because, you gotta go through the failing," Fleck said. "There's a step of being a developmental program, you cannot skip failing. And I'm talking about game-time failing. 

"I'm talking about life, game rep failing. It's the only way you grow," he continued. "I choose to run this program through a developmental program way and you're going to have those."

Fleck continued: "What does inexperience breed? There's going to be a lot of ups and downs. There's going to be some failings. How high and how drastically down those are, that's up to us. But we're that close."

The Gophers starting a quarterback who struggles is nothing new. 

Asad Abdul-Khaliq, way back in 2000, went 10 of 28 passing in his third college start. The Gophers lost that game 28-10 to Ohio. Not Ohio State. Ohio. Abdul-Khaliq went on to start for four seasons and although he wasn't a high completion percentage QB as a sophomore or junior, he did connect on 63.1% of his attempts as a senior in 2003. 

Bryan Cupito's first year as the starter in Minnesota was in 2004 and he completed just over 47% of his passes, including games at Michigan State and Indiana when he went 11 of 33 and 11 of 30, respectively. 

Adam Weber, Minnesota's all-time leader with 72 touchdown passes, completed just 57% of his passes as a four-year starter from 2007-2010. He had enough arm talent to get some looks in the NFL. 

Mitch Leidner started from 2013 to 2016 and never really found a rhythm as a passer.

Tanner Morgan had his huge season as a sophomore in 2019 when he completed 66% of his passes and threw for 30 touchdowns and seven interceptions. But as soon as wide receivers Tyler Johnson and Rashad Bateman went pro, Morgan's numbers fell off a cliff. 

No matter where you look, you're going to find young Gopher quarterbacks over the last two-plus decades who had extremely bad games. Kaliakmanis has flashed big-time arm talent, but can he take the failures and blossom into a quarterback who is better than average? If he does, he'll be the first to do it for the Gophers in a long, long time.