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Minnesota Gopher Football: Quotes from Minnesota head football coach PJ Fleck as he reviews the victory over Washington and looks ahead to the Michigan Wolverines game this weekend. Opening statement Minnesota head coach P.J. Fleck: "Good morning, everybody. Thanks for being here. Obviously last week, really excited about the victory going out to Washington and going out to the West Coast. Thought our players handled the schedule perfectly and I got to give our administration a lot of credit. Our operations staff a lot of credit and equipment staff. They did an amazing job. Everybody putting the schedule together and a very different schedule than we've done in the past.  You know me, we're not necessarily about this is the only way we do it. Every week is completely different, but I thought they had a great balance of what we needed to do to have our players go out and execute at a really high level for our nutritionists or dietitians, and everybody involved. And most importantly, our players preparation for that game in going out there and beating a ranked Washington Huskies team by the coaches poll. They were 28-2 there since 2022. At that stadium, at night, blackout, incredible crowd in a very loud environment. Chaotic. To beat them, says a lot. The only two teams that have beat them were Ohio State and Oregon, respectively, and now they're 28-3, with the Gophers doing that. So I appreciate all of our fans making the trip out there. That was really great to see.  Since the Big Ten merger, there's been seven teams that have gone from the Centra Time Zone or Eastern Time Zone and went out west and won. We have two of those seven victories, and Indiana has two of those seven victories, so it is very difficult to do. It doesn't mean that you're guaranteed to do something just because you have this great plan. We did a completely different plan than we've done in the past because it was right for this particular week, but I loved how our players played. I loved how they responded from last week. Even though it was a win, there was so much more meat left on the bone that we had to do. And they went out and executed. This week, we got a great challenge with Michigan coming to town for a rivalry game for the Little Brown Jug. I'm excited for Fox's Big Noon Kickoff to be here. That's exciting for our fans right outside 3M Mariucci. That'll be great to have all of our fans to congregate right there, right behind the scoreboard, it should be absolutely elite, so I encourage all of our fans to get there really early with the 11 AM kickoff to create an elite environment for Fox for the Rivalry game. And then, last but not least, just wanted to make sure I said this that the Big Ten in Abbott team together for the 'We Give Blood' drive, which I think is a great time to bring some awareness to that. Donating blood saves a lot of lives, and the American Red Cross has declared a national blood crisis. And we have a competition in the Big Ten with Abbott, and we're in 11th Place. So that's why, so we gotta pick it up, and change our best. So all of our Minnesotans, give your blood."