The Vikings loss in the NFC Championship meant our hometown team wouldn’t play the Super Bowl in it’s own stadium. It also meant we’re stuck watching two very hate-able teams in the Eagles and Patriots. There is a bright side to the sadness however! It’s the fact that the lack of wall to wall Vikings coverage means that the Gophers are getting a lot of free publicity this week, including coverage of the fantastic new football facilities (thanks to the Eagles practicing there) and the media draw that is P.J. Fleck being P.J. Fleck.

I’ll link to and embed a bunch of that coverage below but before I do, I wanted to highlight the Facebook Live interview that Coach Fleck did with Michael Rand today on Radio Row. Why?

• Because he answered 3 of TDG’s questions (bonus points if you can ID which ones were ours in the comments)
• Because he teased uniform news and that’s the most exciting news we can hope for in the long cold break between bowl season and spring practices (face it, you know that this is true)

The whole interview is worth a watch, but here’s what we learned on the uniform front:

• We’re going to hear a lot about them. They should be coming in “a few weeks” and it certainly sounds like the U will be building anticipation for them prior to the reveal (Fleck talks about a countdown). And when you hear Fleck talk about them you can tell the staff will be using them all the dang time in recruiting, which means you’ll see them pop up all summer on Twitter.
• REAL TALK: some of you are going to HATE the new uniforms. Fleck straight out says “just like anything we do, they’re probably going to upset some people.” He’s not even hiding it folks. Fleck said that they’ll connect the past, present, and future while also having a new age 37 year old coach got involved feel and I can already see some of you getting an eye twitch from the first part of this sentence. I look forward to all the hate clicks our #content about the uniforms will pull in because LOL SOME OF Y’ALL GONNA BE SO #MADONLINE.
• P.J. Fleck DGAF if you hate the uniforms. Just look at his face as he thinks about how to phrase his responses. It’s priceless. They aren’t for you, he knows they aren’t for you, and he isn’t worried about the people who don’t get that uniforms are for kids now. Also, we’re totally getting oars on something so make your peace with it now.

Best of the rest of #Gophers Super Bowl Week

• Coach Fleck went down the Mississippi River zipline even though he hates heights. This lead to a great video of him being goofy and the photo that tops this post (which I have a feeling I will be using a lot in the future).

• Coach Fleck puts up the Danettes (from the Dan Patrick Show) to go take a Polar Plunge (while getting a free chance to show off the new team meeting room).

• The U gave Pat McAfee and some the Barstool crew (I know, ugh) access to the new facilities and end up with a “hey Minnesota’s new place is tight” type promo (U part starts at approx 1:15 mark).

• The PiPress interviewed Eagles players and got the following quote from former Alabama guard Chance Womack: “It’s awesome, man. It’s state of the art. They really did a good job.” You know that’ll find it’s way into some recruiting convos.
• The Super Bowl has also meant that a plethora of NFL players, soon to be NFL players, and former Gophers have been stopping through the new facilities:

All in all, not a bad week for free publicity if you’re Coach Fleck and the Gophers. Unless you were hoping the new uniforms would be extremely traditional. If you’re that person then I think you’re just out of luck.

GO GOPHERS!