Mariano Sori-Marin News - MinnesotaSportsFan https://www.minnesotasportsfan.com/tag/mariano-sori-marin/ Minnesota sports, but different Mon, 13 Jan 2025 21:17:46 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9 https://www.minnesotasportsfan.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=32,height=32,fit=crop,quality=80,format=auto,onerror=redirect,metadata=none/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/cropped-cropped-MSF-favicon-1.jpg Mariano Sori-Marin News - MinnesotaSportsFan https://www.minnesotasportsfan.com/tag/mariano-sori-marin/ 32 32 PJ Fleck Promotes Another Recent Player to Prominent Role on Gophers Coaching Staff https://www.minnesotasportsfan.com/gophers-football/gophers-football-news/mori-sori-marin-promoted-linebackers-coach/ Mon, 13 Jan 2025 18:37:54 +0000 https://www.minnesotasportsfan.com/?p=59192 Despite a season filled with positive momentum for the Minnesota Gophers, head coach P.J. Fleck faced an unexpected challenge this offseason. Once again, he lost his defensive coordinator to a lateral move, throwing the coaching staff into flux.

Thankfully it didn’t take long for the Minnesota Gophers head coach to find a replacement. It also means more opportunity for internal development.

Minnesota Gophers relying on a familiar face

Just a couple of years ago Mariano Sori-Marin was starring on the Minnesota Gophers defense for P.J. Fleck. Now he is going to try to help it thrive from the sidelines.

Currently employed as the assistant linebackers coach, Sori-Marin now takes over as the man in charge of the linebackers. With 58 games at the position, it’s a spot he knows well. In his time with the Gophers, Sori-Marin turned in 274 tackles, 15 for losses, and 1.5 sacks.

At just 25 years old, Sori-Marin now holds a prominent coaching position at a major university. He has jumpstarted his coaching career in a big way, and can be part of the blueprint for a Gophers defense looking to make noise in the ever-expanding Big Ten.

Related: Minnesota Gophers Hire New Defensive Coordinator

Fleck has seen multiple assistants leave for others schools. If Minnesota continues to stifle salaries for those roles, that will continue. The ability to identify and develop young talent internally can help to curb that situation, however.

Minnesota Gophers Football, Mariano Sori-Marin
Credit: Matt Blewett-Imagn Images

Sori-Marin will be working under his third defensive coordinator at Minnesota. Initially operating under Joe Rossi, and then Corey Heatherman last season, the gig is now going to be held by Danny Collins.

Related: Gophers Land OSU Linebacker Out of Transfer Portal

In his final season playing for the Gophers, Sori-Marin was named All-Big Ten. Fleck is certainly hoping he can impart some of that wisdom on a linebacker corps that is integrating a transfer and looking to replace star LB Cody Lindenberg.

]]> Mon, 13 Jan 2025 15:17:46 +0000 Minnesota Gophers Football News Minnesota Gophers Football Players Past and Present Defend PJ Fleck, Gophers Culture https://www.minnesotasportsfan.com/gophers-football/players-past-and-present-defend-pj-fleck-minnesota-gophers-culture-val-martin/ Fri, 01 Jul 2022 15:42:48 +0000 https://www.minnesotasportsfan.com/?p=39562 Earlier this week, former Minnesota Gophers defensive tackle, Val Martin, took to Twitter and went hard at PJ Fleck and his Row The Boat program. He called his move to Dinkytown, via North Carolina State, the worst thing he’s ever done and dubbed PJ a car salesman.

When confronted by Minnesota fans or questioned by media, Martin doubled, tripled, quadrupled… (etc.) down. To his credit, Val never backed down from his original tweets. He even posted anonymous messages he was receiving from former Gophers under Fleck. Nobody else was willing to run the Gophers program down in a public space, but others clearly have many of the same animosity Martin does, regarding their former coach.

Fleck haters come out to hate (anonymously)

Minnesota Daily News sports editor and GopherHole.com contributor, Tony Liebert, reached out to an anonymous former Minnesota Gophers football player who had more of the same complaints.

Val Martin’s Twitter exchange with Minnesota fans, and some Gopher football players (see below), lasted about 48 hours. It included multiple screenshots, dozens of tweets, even more replies and a couple of live streams. Nobody else put their name on the hate they spewed for Fleck or his program. There’s obvious and legitimate reasons for their anonymity, but the fact is still worth noting.

But for every PJ Fleck hater, there’s a ‘row or die’ protege who points to the Minnesota Gophers’ culture as life changing. Over the hours and days that followed Martin’s Twitter barrage, we saw both former and current players come out in support of Fleck and his culture.

Former and current players defend Fleck’s culture

Current Gophers who came out publicly for Fleck, include (QB) Tanner Morgan, (K) Dragan Kesich, (LB) Mariano Sori-Marin, (EDGE) Thomas Rush and (DT) Trill Carter; who Martin claims punched him in the face at a practice last season.

Former players who voiced support include (LB) Carter Coughlin, (LS) Austin Sullivan (LB) and Jack Gibbens, who came in the same 2021 transfer class as Val Martin did.

But nobody came out of the Fleck support gates hotter than former backup punter, Matt Stephenson. He and Martin had a lengthy back and forth where Stephenson tried to debunk many narratives Val was trying to sell. One of those narratives is the idea that backups don’t matter to PJ Fleck, his assistants or his program.

Eric Strack | Minnesota Sports Fan

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