Minnesota coach P.J. Fleck calls allegations of toxic culture in his program 'baseless'

Minnesota head coach P.J. Fleck emphatically responded Thursday to a report that included several former players alleging mistreatment in the Gophers football program.

The report, published Wednesday by Front Office Sports, described a “cult-like atmosphere” and an environment “fraught with intimidation and toxicity.” Fleck, during his turn addressing reporters at Big Ten media days in Indianapolis, called the allegations “baseless.”

“These allegations are baseless. We have full support of our athletic director, Mark Coyle, and our university leadership,” Fleck said. “This is a similar story that gets peddled every single year, and the majority of the players have been dismissed or removed from our football team. We also have around a half-dozen anonymous reporting avenues within our football program that players can go to if they have an issue.”

Multiple former Minnesota players told Front Office Sports that the program had a system called the “Fleck Bank” that allowed players “with enough ‘coins’ to get away with positive drug tests and other violations of team rules.”

Fleck offered an explanation for the “Fleck Bank,” saying it was an analogy he used with players when he first became Minnesota’s head coach back in 2017.

“The Fleck Bank, mostly used in 2017 and '18, was an analogy used in a team meeting talking about the more you invest into a program, the better experience you're going to get out of it,” Fleck said. “As a head football coach when you come in and you don't know anybody, the guys that do really good things are going to have a really good experience. If you're not doing all the right things, you're probably not going to have a great experience. There was no currency ever exchanged. There was no coins that ever existed. It was an analogy simply to explain investment for life, a life lesson of investment. Simply that. No one ever got out of any type of punishment for that.”

Additionally, players alleged in the report that workouts were used as punishments in Fleck’s program. Fleck denied implementing excessive workouts as a punishment and said that the Minnesota athletic department handles disciplinary actions in the football program.

“We do not use physical activity to discipline our players at the University of Minnesota. And we have never done that,” Fleck said. “Our players do things like wake up early and clean the weight room. Whatever you did, you watch a video on that. If you were late to class, you watch a video on tardiness, you write your professor a letter. Those are the disciplines we actually have within our program. Our athletic department changed their policies and made sure that no physical activity of any sort could be used as punishment based on what we created as a football team.”

Fleck, 42, is in his seventh season at Minnesota after a four-year stint at Western Michigan. Minnesota is 44-27 overall with a 26-26 record in Big Ten play during Fleck’s tenure. The Gophers went 11-2 and finished in the top 10 in 2019 before finishing with a 9-4 record in each of the past two seasons.

Fleck said Thursday that the culture he and his staff have implemented at Minnesota has “proven to work on and off the field.”

“It’s always done in a first-class manner. We're one of the most transparent programs in the country. There are tons of testimonials from past, present, and even future Gophers to support and prove that. My energy needs to be on the 2023 football team, and that only, and not the baseless allegations,” Fleck said.

Minnesota opens the 2023 season with a primetime Thursday night divisional matchup at home vs. Nebraska on Aug. 31.