P.J. Fleck interrupts Minnesota spring game to award walk-on with a scholarship

This is so cool!

The Minnesota Golden Gophers had their spring game on Thursday night, wrapping up the spring football season for P.J. Fleck’s team. The game had one very special moment, though — in the middle of the game, Coach Fleck stopped the game right in the middle of it to award walk-on defensive end Sam Renner a scholarship. It was a pretty awesome moment!

Here’s The Daily Gopher on more of the backstory of how this came to be:

To set up the surprise, Coach Fleck called for a “video replay” after a fumble. Instead of a reply, the game staff rolled that highlight package and Coach Fleck’s message to Sam on the scoreboard for everyone to see. And Sam’s comment on BTN about needing to get back to the game? It was his QB pressure that forced Tanner Morgan to throw an incomplete pass on the last play of the game to seal the Gold team’s 24-20 victory.

Renner is a redshirt junior from Maple Grove, Minn., and according to his Gophers bio, his grandfather played for Minnesota in the 1930’s.

Fleck is no stranger to creatively awarding scholarships before. Last year, he gave Blake Cashman a scholarship during an Easter egg hunt:

And he gave Justin Juenemann one with a t-shirt cannon:

Congrats to Sam!