P.J. Fleck ain’t too proud to beg. Or at least lobby.
Following Minnesota’s blowout win over Maryland on Saturday, the coach publicly stumped for ESPN’s famed College Gameday show to come to Minneapolis for the 8-0 Gophers’ next game against No. 5 Penn State (8-0) in two weeks.
Both teams will be undefeated and coming off byes in what will be the most meaningful November game in decades for the Gophers, who are 8-0 for the first time since 1960, the year of the school’s last national title. Minnesota is seeking its first Big 10 title since 1967.
“I said on TV ‘I really hope College GameDay looks at our twin city, our university, truly to bring GameDay here,” Fleck said when asked what his pitch to GameDay would be.
“We have four million people that live in the twin city area. We are the only division one school in the state of Minnesota. Everybody here is Gophers. We have never hosted College GameDay.”
The Gophers host the Nittany Lions on the same day No. 1 Alabama will host No. 2 LSU in what will likely be the regular season game with the most impact on college football’s regular season and College Football Playoff positioning.
“All due respect to Alabama and LSU, I have no idea what’s going on with them right now, but I can tell you this: You can go to them any year. Pick a year. Pick a game. You can go to them every game of the season, if you would like,” Fleck said.
“College GameDay is about unique stories, about unique places, about unique moments. That’s what they say they’re about, and I’m not going to say they’re not if they don’t come here, because I think that would be bad.”
Fleck certainly makes a good point that GameDay is about unique stories and places. Rather than going to LSU or Michigan yesterday where there was matchups that featured two ranked teams, GameDay went to FCS South Dakota State for one of the greatest FCS rivalries between the Jackrabbits and North Dakota State.
Craig & John will recap the Gameday experience at SDSU and the Dakota Marker loss to the No. 1 Bison today from 3-6 p.m. on KWSN:
98.1 FM, 1230-AM, KWSN.COM and the FREE KWSN APP.
Jacks coach John Stiegelmeier’s weekly live interview will air at 3:20 p.m. and can be heard later at kwsn.com/podcasts.
