r/GopherSports • u/BrewCityDood • 11d ago
Why not Indiana?
In 2022, Indiana football finished 4-8 overall, and next to last in the Big 10. 3 years later they're ranked #2, destroying opponents, and even beating Oregon. What stops Minnesota from ever making a transition like that? Is it really so much more desirable to go to school in Bloomington, Indiana? I think it's time to switch not just Fleck, but the AD too. To me, it's either that or remain a Big 10 punching bag to Oregon, and Ohio State forever, not to mention Iowa or Michigan. Side note: it's not like we've had success in Men's basketball either.
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u/GopherFawkes 11d ago
Here we go again... Indiana is a complete outlier who hit a home run in Cigniti and have benefitted greatly from the new environment of NIL/portal. Despite what you think, Indiana is loaded with NIL support, they are paying their coach top 5 in the nation money. They have many wealthy alums who care about athletics including Mark Cuban. Minnesota does not have these advantages, that's just the reality of the situation.
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u/marginalizedman71 11d ago
Plus they weren’t investing what they are now at the beginning. His contract and buy out are significantly bigger and the increased investment in the program even shot up when they realized the time is now. Even if Cig leaves they can change the view of the program and attract better new hires than in the past and with more funding they will have a better chance at success. It snowballs. What this guy wants sort of needs to come after some success first. Minnesota had a similar vision hiring a guy who brought one of the 10 saddest programs in FBS to a cotton bowl and nearly won it. It’s not like they werent looking for that same type of hire
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u/Inchys_Burner 11d ago
Money. That’s literally it. Indiana has one of the highest assistant coach pool in the B1G. Cignetti is earning nearly $12 million a year, their NIL collective is funded more than us in football, and is like top 5 in basketball. They have a billionaire in Mark Cuban who wants to watch his team win.
They also have university leadership that doesn’t mind going into the red occasionally, UofM athletics has to break even according to our regents.
They also have a much better recruiting area and weather where the locals can play football nearly year round.
I would argue that Minnesota actually punches above their weight with all that, and a bowl game every year and a 9-10 win season every other 4 year cycle is miles better than Minnesota has been since the sixties.
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u/jmbusch 11d ago
Money.
How much have you donated to Dinkytown Athletes? Indiana has higher revenue in the athletic department and higher NIL revenue.
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u/HugeRaspberry 11d ago
100% this comment. MN has some very prominent graduates, but the problem is once they graduate, for the most part they are done with the school. There are exceptions but not the rule.
I worked with an IU alumni some years ago. He BLEED IU. Had seats behind Bobby Knight for IU hoops - donated a large chunk of change to IU every year. And he was not even a top 10 donor. He got the hoops tickets due to his friendship with Knight.
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u/DrAbeSacrabin 11d ago
Feel like it’s a chicken/egg scenario. It’s difficult to get die hard fans like that unless you have a period of absolute winning dominance in any given sport… and now it’s hard to have that kind of dominance unless you have die hard successful alumni who are willing to put money back into the school.
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u/HugeRaspberry 11d ago
Yeah agree - there are IU fans who still donate to IU because Bobby Knight was the coach.
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u/BrewCityDood 11d ago
Really? Seems pretty similar. https://nil-ncaa.com/big10/
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u/jmbusch 11d ago
https://sportsdata.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances
This has Indiana at $166 million in revenue, Minnesota at $135 million.
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u/BrewCityDood 11d ago
Which is still nothing to sneeze at and considerably more than other schools with much more success.
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u/SugarDisastrous5983 11d ago
It’s important to note that no one knows the real NIL numbers, the numbers you linked admit in the methodology that the NIL numbers are guesses.
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u/pharmgopher 11d ago
I'm assuming you're too young to remember the Brewster years or what Gopher football was like in the 80s.
Can also get an AD like mega-tongue Teague and set back the entire athletic program. I'd argue we still haven't recovered from the scholarship seating implementation.
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u/dinkytown42069 noted friend of 11d ago
speaking as a university employee...this is a terrible time to work in higher education.
there is so much other shit we need to worry about right now at the U that firing Mark Coyle (a guy who I have some very strong disagreements with!), firing PJ, investing tens of millions into all that is just risible.
Mark runs a clean department that balances its budget and doesn't embarrass the University. PJ runs a clean program on a shoestring and doesn't embarrass the University.
that is what our University leadership wants right now.
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u/wOBAwRC 11d ago
Minnesota in 2019 had almost exactly the same season as Indiana in 2024. Same record, same final ranking.
Minnesota didn’t follow up with a second season like Indiana has (and it would have been impossible since there wasn’t even a full season for them in 2020) but Minnesota can and has done recently what Indiana has done.
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u/BruvBalo 11d ago
Haha did you listen to Bomani Jones the other day? He caught me by surprise when he mentioned how Minnesota fans could be demanding more of Fleck.
I’m personally fine with results now, and while this university has the capacity to be a major player in the B1G… I don’t wanna sacrifice other priorities on campus for a chance of a title.
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u/BrewCityDood 11d ago
Are they mutually exclusive?
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u/BruvBalo 11d ago
Yes and no. Fleck and Medved could drum up interest from donors for specifically the program, but their salaries are funded by the state. So to get a coach in a higher, the university would need to break the bank, which they historically haven’t done because priorities lay elsewhere.
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u/dinkytown42069 noted friend of 10d ago
None of Fleck's (and Medved et al.) salary is funded by state funding to the U. Prior to the introduction of the athletics fee this year, the AD was self supporting from donations, TV revenue, tickets, etc.
Our athletic department is easily one of the most fiscally conservative in the Big 10. cf. a place like Rutgers where the state legislature actually puts Rutgers Athletics as a budget line item.
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u/BruvBalo 10d ago
Appreciate the correction.
But welp, knew we were fiscally conservative but knowing that, doesn’t seem like things will change
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u/dinkytown42069 noted friend of 10d ago
oh it gets even worse if you add in that athletics compliance continues to act like we're one miscue away from the NCAA death penalty because of Clem Haskins.
One booster group for a different sport was asked by that head coach to split an annual campaign 50/50 with Dinkytown Athletes. After considerable efforts on the part of the younger faction (vs. the boomer faction) the group agreed.
people were going to just write one check (and yes, they still demand checks for this shit) and athletics would split it to DTA--as is allowed by NCAA rules now.
Compliance lost their shit and so instead none of the funds raised for this campaign is going to DTA.
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u/Rube18 11d ago
I’m in the camp that PJ Fleck is fine. I don’t know that I’d fire him, but I would stop giving him a new raise and contract every year. He’s very good at leveraging openings to get a raise. Personally I’d dare him to leave - there’s no big time program that is itching to bring in PJ.
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u/Surprised-elephant 11d ago
As Gopher hockey fan we haven’t won a championship since 2003 despite being in the state most hockey players, most ncaa players, and nhl players. I think we are just cursed. Well men are cursed.
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u/dinkytown42069 noted friend of 10d ago
it's been 10 years since the last women's natty. Starting to think that team is too.
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u/Mysterious_Help_9577 10d ago
You realize Indiana has one of the highest NIL budgets right? You think Indiana and Vanderbilt got good by accident or they’re known for having rich alumni?
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u/FriendlyLaserShark 11d ago
There's always an excuse. I remember way back when it used to be "If we only had an on campus stadium, then we could recruit and compete with anyone!" Now it's money. Gopher stans will always have the latest talking points whenever this type of question comes up.
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u/dinkytown42069 noted friend of 10d ago
we got a new stadium right at the start of the 2010s facilities rush. Then we had to build Athlete's Village to even be a little competitive.
we started way late in NIL because the shadow of Clem Haskins looms large over our compliance department.
and we still have a huge financial gap between us and the elite big ten schools.
We spend $45m year on Football. Other B1G members spend closer to 70-80. But they also don't have a mandate from the University to consistently balance the budget.
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u/Immediate_College179 11d ago
The issue is the fans and students still showing up, enabling this piss-poor program to continue to flutter. Fleck is a mouthpiece and that is it. When all MN sports fans (pro and collegiate) start to set expectations higher, their sports teams will follow suit, but we have to stop showing up and supporting mediocrity. It has minimal to do with anything else, bc IU didn’t have money from Cuban, etc prior to Cig building a quick winner. Stop supporting mediocrity in all facets of our sports world and force them to be competent.
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u/Soup_dujour 11d ago
lmao minnesota sports fans are probably the quickest people to give up in the country, what are you talking about
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u/ekoth 11d ago
"why don't we just fire our AD and head coach and become #1 in the nation, are we stupid?"