Late mistakes costing Fleck’s Gophers

The Big Ten West has been wide open this season but the Gophers have yet to seize the opportunity to earn a spot in the Big Ten Championship Game.

Two losses stick out for the Gophers, who hold a 5-4 record this season – a 37-34 overtime loss at Northwestern when they led 31-10 entering the fourth quarter, and Saturday’s 27-26 loss at home to Illinois when they gave up a 46-yard game-winning touchdown with 50 seconds left in the fourth quarter.

***Click the video box for P.J. Fleck’s full press conference***

“This team could be 3-6 or it could be 7-2. We look at only the losses that should be wins. And I think that you got to look at as a whole piece in your head football coach,” Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck said Monday at his weekly press conference. “The Northwestern game and the end of this Illinois game have a lot of similarities with a one play breakdown in communication shouldn’t happen and can’t happen. I gotta do a better job coaching it, it’s simple. That all falls on me anyway.”

The Gophers are at Purdue on Saturday. It’s a 2:30 p.m. (CT) start in West Lafayette, Indiana.