P.J. Fleck still believes the Gophers can compete at the 'highest level'

Fleck was brutally honest about how Minnesota fits into the current state of college football.

P.J. Fleck at his weekly in-season press conference on Nov. 17, 2025. | Picture via: University of Minnesota (YouTube)

The Gophers lost to then No. 8 Oregon by 29 points on Friday night in Eugene. Head coach P.J. Fleck talked about "closing the gap" between the top tier of the Big Ten after the game, but after losing their fourth straight road game by an average of 29.5 points, that feels like a pipe dream.

"Maybe it wasn't a great choice of words for me to talk about closing the gap. But, yeah, I feel like we're going to compete at the highest level. That's the person I am, that's the competitor I am. I wouldn't coach if I didn't think that. Just because you want that, doesn't mean that's going to happen," Fleck said on Monday.

"We're sitting at 6-4. There's a lot of really good football teams in the country that are 6-4, including us. It's really, really hard to win in 2025. There are not many undefeated teams anymore, you look across the board."

The Gophers are 6-4, and they're currently in a five-way tie for sixth place in the Big Ten at 4-3 in conference play. With an average scoring margin of -8.3, which ranks 105th in FBS, it feels like Minnesota is much closer to 5-5 or even 4-6.

"When you're looking at the two big conferences, with the SEC or the Big Ten, we said this years ago, with 18 teams and 16 teams, we're going to beat up on each other. The records might not look like the records of the old," Fleck continued.

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"What is a top-20 team? What is a top-25 team? Is a 7-3 SEC team ranked really high because of who they play? They should be. Big Ten teams, who are ranked 7-3, ranked pretty high? Probably should be. It is a gauntlet schedule. There's a lot of things that have to go your way, and that's what we'll always strive for."

Minnesota's strength of schedule currently ranks 24th-toughest in college football, according to ESPN. Only nine of the teams with a tougher schedule currently have a winning record, so there is some validity to Fleck's argument.

The bigger question is, what is "the highest level" at Minnesota? Will the Gophers ever replicate their 11-2 season in 2019? Is 8-4 the new 9-3? Those are all fair questions to ask, as they currently sit with the same record at this point of the season as they did last year.