Was Fleeks not here for summer conditioning? Did he go home and get fat in just a couple weeks?I can't remember, was he a walk-on? or scholly?
I believe he played for Rhule before. He should have known what was expected of him. There's no excuse for showing up out of shape unless he had a health issue.Fleeks was a transfer from Baylor. AFAIK scholly.
I disagree with you. Minnesota is prime example of how time of possession (TOP) leads to winning more often than not. They are not exceptionally skilled offensively, nor splashy with big scoring plays. Instead they routinely sit on the ball for 60-70% of games and gives their defense a limited amount of plays to face. This limitation reduces the opportunities for your defense to get beat and shortens the game dramatically. It is not a coincidence that many of the top teams in the country also lead in TOP and I argue that TOP can be an indicator of success, not success being an indicator of TOP. Below are a couple peers and how the numbers break out from last season.
Despite playing three less games than National Champ Georgia, our defense faced only five less plays than them or country leading Air Force playing an extra game, but facing 250 plays less than our defense last season. The additional plays faced exposed our defenders more often as they had significantly more opportunities to be exposed compared to peers. Back to the point... Farmer is not a bad player and we are a better team with him than without him.
Team
Games
Plays faced
Avg. plays faced per game
TOP (minutes per game)
2022 Record
Air Force
13
657
50.54
36.54
10-3
Minnesota
13
772
59.38
34.46
9-4
Georgia
15
912
60.80
33.6
15-0
Michigan
14
879
62.79
33.79
13-1
Iowa
13
883
67.92
28.31
8-5
Nebraska
12
907
75.58
26.67
4-8
Oklahoma
13
1043
80.23
26.38
6-7
I think he's on one of those new fangled NIL schollys that we gave to a few of the super senior Covid guys to get down to 85.
I don't think anyone really knows for sure but I've seen speculation several times that is the case with him.
From what I've gathered its a few of the Covid Super Seniors who are here for an extra year that are on the "NIL scholly". Only here for a semester and lower number of credit hours they need to take due to being a grad student.
And before any asks, this has us at 89 (includes Farmer), so you can do the math from there.
I pulled the top (Air Force), the bottom (Oklahoma), the National Champ (Georgia), the Big Ten champ (Michigan) and two peers from our division (Iowa & Minnesota).I mean ... did you just cherry-pick the ones you wanted?
Air Force led the nation in Time of Possession last year and was 10-3, as you said.
Navy was second in Time of Possession. They were 4-8.
UTEP was fifth. They were 5-7.
Buffalo was 9th. They were 7-6.
Rice was 13th. They were 5-8.
On the other hand, Tennessee was #130 in the country in TOP. They were 11-2.
Ole Miss was #125. They were 8-5.
UCLA was #119. They were 9-4.
There really isn't any correlation. Or, as @brophog said, it's more going the other way - winning allows you to bleed the clock and try to play keep-away.
Or, as @brophog said, it's more going the other way - winning allows you to bleed the clock and try to play keep-away.