Minnesota Golden Gophers head coach P.J. Fleck felt like channeling his inner Kevin O’Connell on Saturday night, announcing that the swarm of fans who showed up to the Rose Bowl would be getting a game ball for their role in the team’s 21-17 victory over UCLA on Saturday night.
Fleck stopped short of going full O’Connell – a wise move considering that the Vikings head coach has to pay for his game balls to give his team after a victory – but he did say the roughly 15,000 fans who attended Saturday’s game would be recognized with a singular game ball at the team facility.
“I don’t know if they’ll ever get this, but I hope they do and we make it a big deal,” Fleck said during his postgame press conference. “We’re not giving out 15,000 game balls, but whoever is at that game today, we gave them a game ball.”
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Gopher fans turned out en masse to the win over the Bruins with the S tar Tribune ‘s Randy Johnson reporting that the university estimated that 12,000-15,000 fans traveled to see Minnesota’s first game at the Rose Bowl since 1962.