Minnesota ranked No. 10 in final @AP_Top25 poll of the season. https://t.co/75stl0CqoI#rowtheboatskiumahgogophers pic.twitter.com/uAx70gVHSQ

— Minnesota Football (@GopherFootball) January 14, 2020

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Wow…. a top-10 finish for the Minnesota Golden Gophers. PJ Fleck says it an exhaustive amount, but he’s right. This last season was full of “never’s”, “first’s” and “restorations”… and their finish in the final AP Poll is no different.

According to GopherSports.com, this is the first time the Gophers have ranked inside the top-10 of the AP Poll, to finish the season, since 1962 (they ranked #10 then too). They’ve only appeared on the postseason AP 2 times since the glory days, before 2019 (1999, 2003).

—— SIDEBAR: We didn’t know what we had with Glen Mason…. But now we have PJ Fleck, and without the “Decade of Ineptitude” that followed the “Mason Decade”, PJ probably isn’t here. What we have with this current program, culture, and administration is something that could bring Minnesota athletics to heights it has never seen before.

While the Gophers are winning games and piling up accolades on the field, let’s not forget about what they’ve done in the classroom. Since arriving on campus, the Gopher Football program has achieved nothing below a 3.0 GPA. In years two and three, they’ve been at a 3.2 or better.

“The hardest part about being the standard, is that you’re the standard.” That’s one of PJ’s favorites, but again, the logic behind it cannot be denied and the guy lives it day-in and day-out. By setting a higher bar with the football team, the rest of the athletic department is responding too. They posted their highest GPA as a University Athletic Department, for a fall semester, in school history (3.33).

For the first time, every #Gophers program has recorded a GPA of 3.0 or above and set a new school record in Fall 2019.

Congratulations to our student-athletes for their hard work in the classroom! https://t.co/Lp9ZxWm0M0 pic.twitter.com/LnRXomNBrZ

— Minnesota Gophers (@GopherSports) January 13, 2020

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With Mark Coyle and PJ Fleck heading the University of Minnesota, there is literally nothing this school can’t be.

…and I’m here for it.

Eric Strack | Minnesota Sports Fan