P.J. Fleck has spent a year with Mark Dantonio’s primary mentor and has shared the field with Dantonio once, but observation can link achievers as well.
“I don’t know much about Mark, I’ve watched him from afar and I’ve admired the program from afar,” Fleck, Western Michigan’s third-year coach, told the Free Press of MSU’s ninth-year coach this week. “He’s really kind of been one of my silent mentors that I’ve watched over the years, how he’s done it. He’s process-driven. One thing about Jim Tressel, he was process-driven. I think some of the most successful programs in America don’t focus on the result — which is very hard to do because you get evaluated on the result.