Yo. Been awhile. Let’s get weird.
So, you’re all certainly aware of the Jason Stahl AJ
Perez piece(s) in Front Office Sports on the culture of Minnesota’s
football program under Fleck. Just to get this out of the way: I don’t want bad
shit happening in the program. Bad shit should be investigated. I don’t know
what the threshold for investigation should be; but I’ve seen nothing in Stahl’s
Perez’s reporting to suggest there’s a need for a broader, third-party investigation.
If more details come to light, then I reserve the right to change my mind.
The whole thing is just extremely odd to me. Of all the
programs to go after, why Minnesota? Fleck is an oddball, sure, but that’s not
new. He was an oddball at Western Michigan and his unconventional approach was
covered widely both nationally and locally when he was hired here. And while we’ve
been on something of an upswing for the last five years, it’s not as if we’ve
burst onto the national scene and are vying for national championships. We’re a
slightly-above-average Power-5 program looking for a special season every few
years. Much better than where we were 15 years ago, but not exactly the status
that brings investigative journalists based in northern Virginia sniffing
around to figure out how we achieved so much so fast.
The other odd element here is that a few Nebraska fans were,
apparently, aware of this story before it was published. Now, yeah, it’s
possible some Nubbers are super well connected to Perez and he was leaking some
of the details; but we’re not talking about those sorts of Husker fans. The
ones that knew are the type that live in the dank, sweaty, scrotal folds of the
internet and have no room for independent thought in what can generously be
referred to as their minds: PJ Fleck is a greedy slumlord in the blighted
neighborhood that is Nebraska brains.
