Koi Perich has thrown his hat into the NCAA transfer portal and there\u2019s no way to spin this as a positive for the University of Minnesota\u2019s football program.<\/p>\n
Or college football.<\/p>\n
![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/shipley.jpg\")
Even if he wasn\u2019t the Gophers\u2019 best safety this season \u2014 that was Kerry Brown \u2014 and coach P.J. Fleck can use the money the U was paying Perich on more than one transfer who can help next season, the fact is, the best in-state prospect to buy into P.J. Fleck\u2019s row-the-boat paradigm has taken a long look and decided he\u2019s more interested in the big-time NIL paradigm.<\/p>\n
Whether it\u2019s more money, more national exposure or a more likely path to the NFL \u2014 debatable \u2014 Perich has decided it won\u2019t happen at Minnesota.<\/p>\n
As a college football fan, one has to wonder if watching most of your school\u2019s best players go look for the bigger, better thing after every season is palatable. And as a Gophers\u2019 fan, one has to accept that this just doesn\u2019t bode well for the program\u2019s viability as, for all intents and purposes, a small-market professional football franchise.<\/p>\n
One could look at what Indiana has done the past two seasons and see a crack under the fence just big enough for those without a ticket to crawl through. We know that, for now, it\u2019s possible for an also-ran Power Four program to genuinely contend for a national championship. But Minnesota appears to be moving the other way at an inopportune time.<\/p>\n
The Gophers went 8-5 after beating New Mexico in the Rate Bowl in Phoenix. The Lobos were one of two bowl teams they beat this season, and Minnesota was 0-3 against the best Big Ten teams they played \u2014 Ohio State, Iowa and Oregon \u2014 and was outscored 123-19.<\/p>\n
With talented young quarterback Drake Lindsey under center and what they believed would be a prolific running game \u2014 it wasn\u2019t \u2014 the Gophers had their eyes on another move up the conference ladder. Instead, it was a typically OK season.<\/p>\n
![\"P.J.](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/STP-L-jea-27-GOPHERS_NEBRASKA-1017A.jpg\")
Minnesota Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck leads his team onto the field at the start of an NCAA football game against the Nebraska Cornhuskers at Huntington Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on Friday, Oct. 17, 2025. (John Autey \/ Pioneer Press)<\/p>\n
It\u2019s probably not lost on longtime Gophers fans that Indiana started the season as the only other OG Big Ten school with a Rose Bowl drought (1968) nearly as long as Minnesota\u2019s (1962). And the Hoosiers just humiliated Alabama in Pasadena on New Year\u2019s Day to advance to the College Football Playoff semifinals.<\/p>\n
This space has been used, fairly recently, to praise the job that Fleck has done in his nine seasons in Dinkytown. A large reason for that is the way he cleaned up an ugly culture fomented by former coach Jerry Kill that later exploded into ugly, and very public, behavior under replacement Tracy Claeys.<\/p>\n
What was once a national embarrassment for the Gophers has changed for the better under Fleck. Against most odds, his dedication to teaching his players how to meditate and where to place the salad fork has, in fact, resulted in a program that Minnesota can be proud of off and, largely, on the field.<\/p>\n
When, for instance, they were short of the six wins required to earn a berth in one of 41 bowl games in 2023, they became eligible because they had the best graduation rate of available teams. That matters, or used to, anyway.<\/p>\n
Further, Fleck\u2019s teams are 7-0 in bowl games, including a victory over a then-Top 10 Auburn team in the 2019 Outback Bowl that pushed them to a program-record 11 wins and No. 10 in the final Associated Press poll. The Gophers also have been sending more players to the NFL, a recruiting point that could help build the talent coffers.<\/p>\n
Landing Perich, a four-star recruit from Esko who turned down 2025 national champion Ohio State to stay home, was another positive step. Losing him, as seems inevitable, is two steps back, because whatever the safety and kick returner\u2019s goals are, he\u2019s convinced they will be easier to meet elsewhere.<\/p>\n
Even Darius Taylor, a talented but oft-injured tailback, who will no doubt be the Gophers\u2019 starter next season, waited until the last moment \u2014 at least publicly \u2014 to renew his vows with Minnesota.<\/p>\n
Fleck did something smart when this season ended, when he publicly revealed that he was allowing Lindsey to help him target receivers in the next recruiting class. In the absence of the big, big money, giving a promising QB like Lindsey that kind of ownership is the next best thing to the bigger, better thing.<\/p>\n
But isn\u2019t it exhausting? Not just for Fleck, or athletics director Mark Coyle, but everyone with an emotional stake in the Gophers\u2019 success.<\/p>\n
Fleck has been conspicuously tied to just about every coaching opening that appears to be a step up from Minnesota. If any of that was real, and those offers come again, he might want to finally take one with more money in the slush fund.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Koi Perich has thrown his hat into the NCAA transfer portal and there\u2019s no way to spin this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[339,7,1454,49,48,9],"class_list":{"0":"post-651322","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-college-sports","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-gophers-football","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaa-football","13":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115832602304509927","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}