PJ Fleck has made a habit of turning Minnesota wins into full-blown theater, and Saturday’s celebration after the Gophers beat Michigan took things to another level.
Once Minnesota finally got its hands on the Little Brown Jug, Fleck wasted no time making the moment memorable. Inside the locker room, he chugged from the historic trophy, then followed it up with a wild stage dive as his players celebrated around him.
WHAT A DAY 〽️ #SkiUMah #Gophers #RTB pic.twitter.com/BJAuZdAbyf
- Minnesota Football (@GopherFootball) October 3, 2026
The Little Brown Jug is the prize the Gophers and Wolverines play for every time they meet. The earthenware jug dates back to the early 1900s, when Michigan first beat Minnesota in 1903.
According to the story behind it, then-Michigan coach Fielding H. Yost worried Minnesota might tamper with the water supply and told a student manager to buy a jug.
The next game ended in a tie after stormy weather and a field storming by Minnesota fans prevented it from being finished. Yost left the jug behind, Minnesota painted it brown, and the Gophers wrote the final score on it.
More than 120 years later, the winner still adds its name to the surface.
Saturday’s antics came a week after Fleck drew attention for a very different kind of postgame moment. After Minnesota’s win over Washington was secured, he went straight to defensive captain Maverick Baranowski, who had opened a cut on his chin earlier in the game. Fleck hugged him, then wiped Baranowski’s blood onto his own face.
pic.twitter.com/qBOgZHk39d
- FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) September 27, 2026
Fleck’s Minnesota run has produced plenty of winning, even if the Gophers haven’t exactly lived among the Big Ten’s elite. Since his time at Western Michigan and now at Minnesota, his record looks like this:
2013 Western Michigan 1-11
2014 Western Michigan 8-5
2015 Western Michigan 8-5
2016 Western Michigan 13-1
2017 Minnesota 5-7
2018 Minnesota 7-6
2019 Minnesota 11-2
2020 Minnesota 3-4
2021 Minnesota 9-4
2022 Minnesota 9-4
2023 Minnesota 6-7
2024 Minnesota 8-5
2025 Minnesota 8-5
2026 Minnesota 4-1
Career Western Michigan/Minnesota 99-67
Fleck is making $6 million per season, and he signed a one-year extension before the 2025 season that keeps him under contract through 2030. His deal also includes an annual sweetener that would pay him an average of $1.66 million more per season if he finishes out the contract. He is set to $1.3 million at the start of the 2027 season, which is $100,000 more than he made to open this season.
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Michigan Tech still found a way to finish the job, scoring the winner late in the third period and sending Minnesota home with a loss in its first game of the year. For a team trying to set the tone right away, the mix of a slow rink, a strong start and a late collapse made this one feel like a missed opportunity. [Read more 🡒]
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The bigger edge came after halftime, when Minnesota kept Michigan out of the end zone and turned the game into a test of patience and discipline. PJ Fleck praised his teams resilience afterward, and it was easy to see why. For a program that has spent decades chasing this matchup, the win carried the kind of weight that can linger well beyond one Saturday. [Read more 🡒]