Few head coaches in the country faced more challenges in putting together their 2017 recruiting class than P.J. Fleck.

Minnesota hired Fleck on Jan. 6, just 26 days before national signing day. He inherited a football program in turmoil from a sexual assault scandal that led to mass suspensions and a brief, player-led boycott of the Holiday Bowl. Several players voiced their anger at the administration when Tracy Claeys was fired after a 9-4 season, and committed recruits were defecting in waves.

It was a situation that most coaches would have found daunting. But Fleck, using the same endless energy and optimism that helped him lead Western Michigan to a New Year's Six bowl, embraced the obstacles. He described the past few weeks as "drinking from a fire hose." A cliché, sure, but at least it fits the water theme of Coach "Row the Boat."

P.J. Fleck did his best to put together a 2017 class, but he has an eye on future classes because depth is thin. AP Photo/Jim Mone

In the end, the Golden Gophers ended up with the No. 58 class, according to ESPN Recruiting Nation, to rank 13th in the Big Ten, one spot ahead of Purdue. But that was actually an improvement on where Claeys' class ranked before the coaching change, and considering all the factors at play, was a solid showing.

In fact, nine of the 15 players who committed under Claeys left the fold after his firing on Jan. 3. Fleck still managed to bring in 25 total recruits less than a month later, including six prospects who had committed to him at Western Michigan.

"The first thing you do is call the people who were committed to you before and see if they have any interest," Fleck said. "Those guys who traveled with us didn't even see the University of Minnesota. They committed sight unseen. I think that shows the power of our culture."

While taking recruits from his former school surely ruffled some feathers back in Kalamazoo -- just as James Franklin did when he took some Vanderbilt commits to Penn State -- Fleck said it was important to bring with him players he knew well given the compressed time.

"That first class, you want to know them as much as you can, because you'll be with them for four or five years," he said. "You want to make sure it's truly your culture, and those guys exemplify our culture."

From there, Fleck and his assistants worked their previous connections as hard as they could to find some late additions. He kept all of Minnesota's in-state pledges on board, including standout offensive lineman Blaise Andries.

Thought it might have been tempting to simply take the best available players, given the time frame and his lack of familiarity with the roster, Fleck said his staff had to fill needs. Minnesota not only lost several seniors, but 10 players are suspended indefinitely in connection to an alleged sexual assault in early September and could face expulsion.

"We don't have a freshman, a redshirt freshman or a sophomore at defensive tackle on our entire roster, and we have only one junior there," Fleck said. "We're very thin at the defensive back position and will be as we move forward, possibly."

"We became a lot younger, very quickly. In 2018, we'll probably be one of the youngest teams in the country. So we had to be able to look two years ahead, not just one year ahead, when we built this class to at least provide some depth for the future."

Quarterback was another area of need. Mitch Leidner graduated, and two of his backups are suspended. The Gophers signed three quarterbacks in this class, including a junior-college signal-caller who had committed to Claeys and enrolled early. The two Fleck-recruited quarterbacks are Tanner Morgan and Reyondous Estes, the latter of whom could play wide receiver or defensive back because of his athleticism.

Fleck said a big focus of next year's class will be to sign another quarterback, and "we're going to shoot for the stars on that one."

"We know we have issues in terms of depth and experience there right now," he said. "We're going to solve that here in the next year and a half, I promise you that."

Fleck and his staff had to scramble to assemble this class, but he's not shy about aiming high for 2018 and beyond. His new term for players he wants on campus is "Howfers," as in how future Gophers will fit his culture.

"We have to change the image of the University of Minnesota forever," he said. "That's nothing negative. But we're going to change it going forward to a national brand and a national style. We're going to go after the best players in the entire country."

That is an ambitious plan. Yet it's par for the course for a guy who transformed Western Michigan into national relevance almost through sheer force of will.

His challenges at Minnesota are different and possibly even more difficult, given what has transpired off the field. Fleck said he has been impressed so far with the buy-in of his veteran players during winter workouts, and he has tried to meet with everyone from boosters to marketing people to regular students already during his short time in the Twin Cities.

"You want to do everything you possibly can to connect as many people to your culture as possible, and that's what we're doing," he said. "It's a large task in two-and-a-half weeks, but we have the energy to do it."