MINNEAPOLIS — In 2005, P.J. Fleck, an undersized wide receiver in his second and final year with the San Francisco 49ers, encountered an assistant coach, Jerry Sullivan, whose teaching methods sparked something in Fleck that gave rise to his career in coaching.

Meanwhile, at Northern Illinois, Fleck’s alma mater, Matt Simon redshirted while injured in his second year out of Farmington, Minn. Fleck and Simon connected at NIU in 2007 and ’08. Fleck coached the wide receivers in his first full-time position. Simon caught passes en route to two seasons in the NFL with the New Orleans Saints.

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Ultimately, their bond reunited Fleck and Simon in 2014 at Western Michigan. Fleck had climbed the ladder to run his own program, and he gave Simon an opportunity after the aspiring coach felt a calling to teach, in part as a result of his NFL brush with Drew Brees.

“I really believe that life has a funny way of working itself out,” Simon said.

Eight years later, they’re still together, thriving in Simon’s home state. Fleck, the Minnesota coach set to enter his sixth season, is 35-23 after a nine-win finish last year that earned him a contract extension.

Simon, at age 36, is the Gophers’ wide receivers coach, passing game coordinator and co-offensive coordinator. He’s one of the most promising assistant coaches in college football, with a long list of players he’s helped propel to stardom, and a future that figures to include his own ascension of the coaching ladder.

“It’s only a matter of time before the whole country knows him,” said Kirk Ciarrocca, the Gophers’ offensive coordinator and longtime Simon mentor.

It’s working out, all right.

“It’s interesting when you coach a guy and you see him as a player, then you watch him as a coach,” Fleck said. “You watch him get married and have kids, be there as a dad. It’s an incredibly proud feeling to know you’re a small piece of that.

“And I’m not a huge piece; I’m a small piece. Matt’s earned everything that he’s ever gotten. I knew from early on that he’d be a phenomenal coach.”

Fleck will be on stage Tuesday at Big Ten media days in Indianapolis. Behind the scenes back home, Simon, the rising star, plays a key role in the development of Fleck’s offense and in the installation of his culture.

Simon called plays for the Gophers amid coordinator transitions in bowl wins against Auburn after the 2019 season and against West Virginia last year. Simon’s first fill-in assignment arrived when Penn State poached Ciarrocca after the Gophers’ 11-win season in 2019. Ciarrocca had worked with Fleck and Simon since their WMU days. When Fleck fired Ciarrocca’s replacement, Mike Sanford Jr., last November, Simon stepped in again, creating a bridge for the return of Ciarrocca this year.

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Receivers in Simon’s time at Western Michigan and Minnesota have annually exceeded expectations.

This season ought to bring more of it.

“That guy’s work ethic, his willingness to be great, the things he’s taught me, what I’ve seen him do, he’s one of the best ever, to me, man,” Minnesota receiver Chris Autman-Bell said. “We’ve had hard conversations. I’ve cried in front of him. Just everything he’s done for me, I’m forever thankful.”

Autman-Bell, a former Western Michigan commit who followed Fleck and Simon to Minnesota in 2017, returns for his sixth year in Minneapolis this season after catching 114 passes for 1,756 yards in the past four years.

He’s the latest in a line of Simon pupils that includes Rashod Bateman and Tyler Johnson. They accumulated 2,537 receiving yards in 2019 and became the first pair of receivers from one team to earn first-team All-Big Ten recognition in the same season — rivaling Ja’Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson of LSU as the top duo in the nation.

Bateman in 2021 was the first Minnesota receiver ever drafted in the first round.

Before them under Simon at Western Michigan came Corey Davis, another first-round pick, and Daniel Braverman. Davis finished his collegiate career with 5,285 receiving yards, the most in FBS history. The duo totaled 2,807 receiving yards in 2015, the most by a pair of teammates nationally since 2002.

This stuff doesn’t likely happen by coincidence.

“Their success is their own fault,” Simon said. “It validates the blueprint that we have. But that’s a byproduct of those guys going out and working hard. We teach the same things to all of them. And ultimately, the guys like them, they have to wake up every day and do it.

“We hold them to a standard. But they have to pick up their hard hats and their tool belts and go build it.”

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Simon’s approach emphasizes substance over style. Some of it, he gained from Fleck, whose philosophy on coaching receivers came largely from Sullivan — described by Fleck as the “godfather of wide receiver play.”

Brees, the legendary quarterback, made an impact, too. Simon landed with the Saints in 2009, undrafted out of NIU. At his initial workout after rookie minicamp, Simon caught his first pass from Brees. When Simon returned the ball to a manager, Brees introduced himself, entirely unnecessary, but impressive.

“Just the way he commanded respect without yelling and screaming,” Simon said, “it was professional, demanding, but whatever he wanted out of you, he held himself to a higher standard. I didn’t want to let him down.”

Later in Simon’s time with the Saints, Brees talked with him about receiver play. The best wideouts, Brees said, don’t operate within a rigid set of rules.

“There isn’t always a right and wrong,” Simon said. “That was where my brain had taken it. But he was the one who started helping me shift and mold that.”

Simon still teaches Brees’ lessons to his receivers.

“We give the guys the ability to deductively work through their problems,” he said. “I look at wide receiver play as an essay question. It’s not multiple choice, yes or no, right or wrong.”

Minnesota QB Tanner Morgan said he’s long recognized something special in Simon. When the coach called plays in the two bowl victories, both directed by Morgan, Simon handled the new job like a veteran, Morgan said, putting the Gophers in position to make plays.

As much as he respects Simon as a coach, Morgan said, he thinks more highly of him as a person. In 2020, Morgan’s father, Ted, was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer, when doctors found a tumor after he suffered a stroke.

Ted Morgan died in July 2021. For Simon, the experience sent him back to 2003. His father, Dean, died of the same type of cancer when Matt was a junior in high school. Morgan remains appreciative that Simon took time to connect with him over their shared losses.

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“I knew what he was going to feel, if nothing else,” Simon said. “I wanted to help him unload some of that weight.”

Simon and his wife, Charlotte, named their first-born son after Matt’s father. They celebrated Dean’s third birthday Saturday.

Celebrations ahead might follow a promotion for Simon.

“Listen,” Autman-Bell said, “I will forever and always be around him. He’s one of those coaches that you can never forget about and always will love.”

Simon said he’s dreamed since before he graduated from high school in Farmington, without a scholarship offer from Glen Mason’s coaching staff to attend Minnesota, of helping lead the Gophers to a championship.

He has no plans to give up on it.

“In due time,” Simon said. “I’m always pushing myself. But I love the state of Minnesota. I love the people. I love the university. That’s what I focus on. Too many times, people are trying to say, ‘What’s next?’ I know that’s going to come. But I don’t want to go actively looking for it. If I’m not a good coach at where I am now, I’ll never get the opportunity.

“So I want to be the very best.”

(Photo courtesy of Minnesota)