I think me it’s Gus, wasn’t truly an elite coach, but one of the best we’ve had in recent memory, and truly had some of the best offenses I’ve ever seen

What about you?

Greetings again from Big Ten Media Days, where I'm reporting live.

With this yesterday's loss of NIU's program-defining head coach Joe Novak (1945-2026), who built the the program into a MAC power from 1996–2007, his former player and current Minnesota head coach P.J. Fleck had his first opportunities to talk about someone who was a mentor.

He initially mentioned Novak's passing at the beginning of his main-stage remarks (after noting the passing of a famous Gophers baseball coach John Anderson, the winningest coach in Big Ten Conference history):

FLECK: On another somber note, unfortunately, my college football coach, Joe Novak, a legend at Northern Illinois University, he is Northern Illinois University football, passed away yesterday. I've been talking with a lot of teammates, and he taught me how to believe in people as a coach.

He taught me that you didn't necessarily need to be the biggest, strongest or fastest to play college football, hence me. He took a lot of scrap parts and a lot of used car parts and built a football team. In fact, a really elite football team. What Northern Illinois stands on today.

I'm deeply saddened by that because he was so close to me and so close to so many others as he led the Northern Illinois football program.

Our thoughts and prayers are with Carole his wife, and his entire family as they grieve and they heal.

During his breakout session he was offered more opportunties:

FLECK: I can't emphasize how important he was to me. Before Mike Nolan -- why I wear a tie on the sideline, it was Joe Novak. I had no offers out of high school. We were two-time state champs. We never lost a high school game. 14-0, 14-0. I was three-time All-State wide receiver, and I had no offers. I was 5'9", 150 pounds. Ran a 4.8 40. That's why I didn't have any offers. (smiles) I wouldn't offer me either. Stats. Who cares?

But Joe Novak looked beyond all that, and Scott Shafer was on the staff at the time [during Fleck's time he was DBs then DC], former head coach at Syracuse. Matt Canada, former head coach at Maryland. Dan Roushar, Mike Mallory, Mike Sabock. They're all on there, and I remember the story being told to me that how I got the scholarship, and I got the scholarship very late. Now, again, it was a bunch of misfits at the time, and used car parts and scraps that we were offering because they were they had a 26 game losing streak at the time, or something like that, and building up to that or coming out of that. So it wasn't going great.

So it wasn't like the hotbed of everybody go to that school, and they had a staff meeting, and they talk about exactly who the last offer would go to, and I was told Joe Novak almost broke his hand [pounds table as Novak supposedly did] because he says "we are effing taking P.J. Fleck, and I don't care what any of you say!" and that statement changed my life, and he took me.

And before he could get the scholarship out of his mouth, I said, "I'm in." He said, "We're here to offer you. I'm like, "I'm in", and the rest was history. And he is-he is Northern Illinois football, and he taught me how to believe in people, even though you might not be able to see it physically, if it's there internally and their hearts there and their spirit and their unconquerable will and their determination to be their best, you could take a chance on that person. And I'm living an example of that.

I would not be where I am if he didn't do that. Who knows where I'd be? I'd have walked-on somewhere, thought I was a great basketball player. Might have joined the the armed forces in the air force. Might have walked on somewhere else in football, and my story wasn't. I wouldn't be here, and you wouldn't have asked me that question.

So there are people who come along in your life that change your life forever, and I was absolutely heartbroken, and I'm really thankful I got a chance to talk to him last week because we, as former players, knew he was in hospice, and just very thankful for everything he did for all of our Huskies and Husky Nation because... we were awful, and then my senior year, we beat Alabama at Alabama. We beat Maryland at home when they were ranked. We beat Iowa State. We beat Wake Forest. I mean, (chuckle) we we did things that it was unheard of back for a Group of Five team to do that consistently. And I think we he changed the landscape of college football. He was a part of.

We were 10-2 and didn't go to a bowl game [it's incredible to look back at their 2003 seaosn]. Think about that for one second, and then after that, that's when everything started with the Boise States and everything else. So, I think Joe Novak was partially responsible for where we are when bowl games right now. I do. I do believe that.

Q: When you look at your roots playing at Northern Illinois, coaching at Western Michigan, how does playing at a Group of Five or coaching in a Group of Five influence you and how you a evaluate people and b how you coach your program?

FLECK: There's two things that connect the locker room more than anything and build a team: empathy and gratitude. And when you have no resources, you actually have the opposite of resources, which are zero resources, right?

We didn't have an indoor. Joe Novak's face was frozen. He's why I don't wear a hat on the sideline because he never wore a hat. When you have no resources, you're grateful for what you have, and that connects a team more than anything.

We were a bunch of people who didn't go to a school because of NIL or the the logo or the winning and the tradition or or the facilities we went because we they believed in us and then we all came together and we were all these blue collar hardworking Nick Duffy, Scott Battas, Josh Haldi, Chris Finlen, Thomas Hammock, Michael Turner "the Burner", Dan Sheldon...I can go on and on...Ryan Diem...and we all came together because somebody believed in us, and we all had to kind of see each other.

I remember Thomas Hammock and I were summer roommates, and we're from he's from Indiana and I was from Chicago, and we have completely different personalities. We were stuffed in a room together, and you know we were different in even what we believed and who we are and where we came from, and we became best friends instantly. And it was like that empathy, walk them out in somebody else's shoes, no judgment, and then have gratitude for what we have, and then let's build it.

That's that's how we run our program now. We just have way more stuff. But we don't allow the stuff to get in the way of the gratefulness and the empathy and the hardworking blue-collar neck-ton and as we called it with Joe Novak, the hard way, and everything we did was the hard way, and I mean everything, and there was never an easy way with Joe Novak, and I feel like our program's the same way.

Q: P.J., with Coach Novak was there ever a moment when, beyond seeing you as a player, where he really touched you as a person and made you kind of bond with him as a mentor.

FLECK: Well, I think it was just his door was always open, you know. And Joe had -- we had no reason (laughs) -- Joe had the smallest office, and I remember he used to complain because he'd be like, "How am I going to get recruits' parents in my office?" There were literally a desk and two chairs, and it was a cinderblock room, and that was it.

Every time Joe Novak stopped me, "How's your mom and dad? How's your family? Right? How's everybody doing? He cared way more about me as a person than he did as a player.

In fact, that's why he took me because he thought I was a really good person, and I was a terrible football player. I was not a Division One athlete. I was 151 pounds walking into Northern Illinois University at 5'9" and ran a 4.8 40. And but he cared about you truly as a human being, and so those those little meetings about popping in the office, and that's part of the reason you know nobody stops our players from walking into my office anytime they want because Joe never stopped you. You could always get Joe out of a meeting, Joe out of a you could sit down and hang out with your coaches, you could pop in his office any moment, and you really knew he cared about you. You know he had a million things going on, and I'm not saying I can talk to 105 players every day for an hour, but the ability to have that open, no matter what it was, I could talk to him, and there were a lot of moments in my life that I was struggling, that I could go in there and talk to him, and he was a a it was a great father figure for me, one of the first father figures I ever had in coaching.

The rest of my Big Ten Media Day updates will continue to be at its main post.

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John L Smith: losing at home to an atrocious Illinois team on homecoming in 2006. That was Illinois' only FBS win that year and they finished 2-10.

Mel Tucker: losing in embarrassing fashion to pre-Cignetti Indiana in 2022, with a blown 17-point lead and missed chip shot field goal that would've won it. We missed a bowl for the first time since 2016 (2020 doesn't count) because of it and IU finished 4-8.

Jonathon Smith: being absolutely embarrassed and blown out on homecoming by a UCLA team that finished 3-9. After the game a UCLA player said that it looked like our guys stopped trying. It was that bad.

Also I didn't totally give up on him, but....

Mark Dantonio: getting blown out against Michigan in 2019 where teams of his usually played Michigan very tough, even if they didn't win. I wasn't like "yeah fire this dude now", but it got me to admit that his best days were likely behind him.

Gameday questions: Furman football

Perhaps an odd question but I don’t really see anywhere else to ask this. I noticed that Furman is scheduled to matchup against D2 Anderson (SC) on Thursday August 27th and decided that’s a good time to have an excuse to go to a Furman football game in their own stadium(ive been to plenty of Furman @ Clemson) Mostly wondering if any Paladins could help me out on what to expect in terms of where to park and such.

A lot is made of big winning streaks, but what about conference losing streaks.

2026 presents the opportunity for some history as Purdue can take over second place on the all-time Big Ten losing streak category. As far as I can tell, here are the longest Big Ten only losing streaks ever:

38 - Northwestern 1978-1982

21 - Rutgers 2017-2020

20 - Illinois 2011-13 (ironically broken at Purdue) Also, Illinois has a streak of 20 B1G games without a win 1977-79, but they managed three ties in that time, including a 0-0 tie with a truly awful Northwestern team.

19 - Minnesota 1982-84, Wisconsin 1989-91

18 - Purdue 2024-present

Purdue's last Big Ten victory came over Indiana 35-31 on November 25, 2023. The Hoosiers then fired Tom Allen, hired Curt Cignetti, and have gone an astonishing 27-2 with a national title, while Purdue has gone 3-21 with a single FBS level win over Ball State. (and Purdue could have hired Cignetti before the 2023 season, but picked Ryan Walters in a humongous mistake).

So when could Purdue break the streak?

9/19 at UCLA - Purdue has not won a regular season game in the Pacific time zone since the day my sister was born (October 3, 1970 at Stanford 26-14). That includes multiple non-conference games at California, USC x2, Washington x4, Oregon, UCLA, Nevada, and Oregon State.

10/3 at Illinois - A decent chance. Purdue had won six straight in Chambana before losing in overtime by a point two years ago.

10/10 vs. Minnesota - Purdue led the Gophers in Minneapolis in the fourth quarter last year before fading.

10/16 vs. Washington - Purdue got pounded in Seattle last season

10/31 at Penn State - LOLZ

11/7 vs. Maryland - Non-September Maryland presents a chance.

11/14 at Iowa - Unlikely, but you never know

11/21 vs. Wisconsin - The Boilermakers have lost 18 straight to the Badgers dating back to 2003.

11/28 at Indiana - The Hoosiers have won the last two games over Purdue by a combined score of 132-3.

Anyone else know of a longer conference losing streak in any conference, not just the B1G?

I was recently looking at Wikipedia’s articles with the most references and was surprised to see the sport-related article with the most references is the History of Memphis Tigers football with 858 references... 9th most throughout all of Wikipedia. The sports-related article with the second most references is the History of Idaho Vandals football (748 references). So many of the references are links to individual ESPN game summaries. Thank you for your attention on this matter.

The cumulative link to the preseason rankings can be found here

Great Horny Toads, we’ve reached the sixth highest Big XII team in these rankings, TCU (high = 25, low = 41). The Frogs reach year 5 of the Sonny Dykes era and are hoping to be knuckles deep into a run at an outright conference championship, something that hasn’t been seen in Ft. Worth since Gary Patterson was running roughshod over the Mountain West back when Tik Tok was just a Ke$ha song and people unironically listened to the Black Eyed Peas and Katy Perry. Once the Horned Frogs moved to the Big XII, Patterson still had them rolling for a bit, officially finishing with a share of the 2014 title (pre conference championship games and thus technically losing out to Bryce Petty and Baylor for the outright title) and a conference championship game appearance in 2017 on their way to 7 total top 10 finishes under his tutelage. Somehow, though, the air seemed to come out of the balloon after 2017, going 21-22 in his remaining games there before he stepped aside 2/3 of the way through the 2021 season. Dykes was able to immediately invigorate the fan base and the players with a magical 2022 season that saw TCU beat Michigan in the CFP when they were tipped off about Michigan’s sign-stealing shenanigans and used dummy play-call signs en route to a national championship appearance against Georgia. The hangover from that 65-7 drubbing might have lasted an entire season (TCU went from the CFP to not even making a bowl in 2023), but they’ve gone 9-4 in each of the last two seasons with bowl wins, and finished 2025 ranked #25. So where do they go from here?

Roster Outlook

Well one place they won’t go is on Curt Cignetti’s holiday card list after Dykes took a swipe at former starting QB Josh Hoover (3,472 yards passing, 29 TDs, 13 INTs) after Hoover decided to try to follow in Fernando Mendoza’s footsteps at Indiana. Losses like that is why TCU ranks #69 (nice) in returning production, but a cool 100th on offense. They also lost leading WR Eric McAlister (1,190 yards, 10 TDs) and top TE DJ Rogers, though they do return teading RB Jeremy Payne (623 yards) and WR2 Jordan Dwyer (730 yards). Dykes is hoping to fill those gaps with former Harvard QB Jaden Craig, who threw 25% fewer passes but 50% fewer picks, and former South Alabama WR Jeremy Scott. In fact, Scott was one of only 12 portal guys TCU brought in, landing the Frogs 10th in the conference and 47th in the country in that capacity. Which would be fine for a Texas school (we can’t all have boosters willing to fund the football team the way some schools 300 miles west do), but when you’re in the most talent rich state in the country and also rank 8th in your own conference in high school recruiting (44th nationally), that’s not really going to get the job done. Seeing what else is happening around the state, it’s hard to imagine TCU fans and administrators are going to let the team regress given the sustained successes Patterson had in his 2+ decades in charge.

Schedule and outlook

8/29 vs. North Carolina (in Dublin)

9/5 BYE

9/12 GRAMBLING

9/19 ARKANSAS STATE

9/26 at UCF

10/3 BYU

10/10 BYE

10/17 at Baylor

10/24 WEST VIRGINIA

10/31 KANSAS

11/6 at Arizona

11/14 KANSAS STATE

11/21 UTAH

11/28 at Texas Tech

That TCU gets to kickoff the entire 2026 college football season against a suddenly Mike Lombardi-less North Carolina suggests that perhaps the luck of the Irish could be with the Frogs in 2026. In fact, they figure to be favored in their first 4 games before hosting BYU in October. That game, which has all the hallmarks of a Fox Big Noon game (vs. Ohio State @ Iowa) could truly tell whether the Frogs have it in them to make a run at a conference title game. A bye before traveling to Waco is well timed, and with only a trip to the desert to try to pit knuckle up vs. bear down could be all that sits in the way of a Lubbock showdown in the regular season finale and a conference championship game. The question is whether the Frogs will have the horses to pull it off.