A person approached P.J. Fleck at the Minnesota State Fair this year with a burning question.

The Gophers football coach recalled the fan asking him: “‘Why do you keep running the same inside play?’”

Fleck took it as a fair question and showed a willingness to coach up his arm-chair quarterback.

“I was like, ‘You know there’s 57 ways to run that inside play?’ ” Fleck relayed, picking a number based on the multitudes of formations, motions/shifts and blocking schemes used for that inside zone run, a staple of the U offense. “They looked at me like I had eight heads because they didn’t expect that answer back.”

The observer still wasn’t satisfied, so the pair agreed to politely part ways.

But after two weeks of the Gophers’ season, that supporter probably appreciates some of the new wrinkles and variety within Minnesota’s offense going into a Week 3 matchup against Nevada at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at Huntington Bank Stadium.

“It’s just to evolve,” Fleck told the Pioneer Press this week. “You have to be able to change with the times.”

Fleck’s philosophical foundation of a strong running game to control time of possession and suffocate opponents will likely never change, but the Gophers are incorporating more quick passing concepts this fall. Fleck said a revamp of coaching schemes goes into each offseason, but he was willing to have this change be considered among his biggest shifts since he become the U coach in 2017.

“I think if you want to call it one of the bigger ones, sure, but I still don’t see it as huge,” Fleck said. “I see it as a change, and I see it as very different. But I don’t sit there and say, ‘Oh my gosh, we’ve completely reinvented the wheel.’ ”

The sample size has been small — only two games — and the biggest tests of the new schemes loom after this weekend: Iowa, Michigan and USC to start the string of nine Big Ten contests.

But the Gophers have deviated from heavy doses of the run-pass option (RPO) scheme they used so frequently with ironman tailback Mo Ibrahim to an attack that focuses more on new transfer quarterback Max Brosmer’s ability to process what coverages are being presented and distribute the ball as widely as he sees fit.

“It was kind of fun,” offensive coordinator Greg Harbaugh said about the offseason tinkering. “Because you put a lot of time and effort into that. It’s been the thing that, No. 1, we’ve studied, we’ve continued to work at (and) we addressed it with Max.”

Minnesota has still run the ball 56 percent of offensive snaps through two games, but that’s down from 62 percent across the entire 2023 season. Part of that shift is due to the Gophers’ current issues along the right side of its offensive line, which has contributed to only 2.7 yards per carry so far this season.

“We were going to take what the defense gave us,” Fleck said, while pointing out how Rhode Island committed to stopping the run with more defenders in the box. “We can sit there and be stubborn. … What you just said, whatever we’re averaging (per carry), and we need that average to go up. Or we could do what it takes to win the football game.”

Against Rhode Island, the Gophers’ 27 total completions (Max Brosmer’s 24 and Drake Lindsey’s three) combined for a single-game high across Fleck’s tenure at Minnesota. The Gophers also had 12 pass catchers against the Rams, another high since at least 2018. (Reminder: Rhode Island is a lower-level FCS school.)

“The key for us to have success is the ability to spread it around,” Fleck said about a season-long objective. He has routinely mentioned the added depth he sees on his team this season.

Fleck revealed that the Gophers coaching staff continually ranks their best players on offense and defense, from No. 1 to 20. (They do the same thing on defense, too.) It’s an effort to look in a slightly different way at how to get their best 11 players on the field.

When that list has included more offensive linemen — and Ibrahim or, say, Rodney Smith — the Gophers have run the ball at a higher clip.

“You rank them, you sit there and say, ‘OK, well, we got to find a way to get these guys the ball and have them impact the game as much as possible,’ ” Fleck said. “… So you’ve got to be able to adapt to that, too. And I think that’s what we’re doing.”

Through two games, Gophers receivers have had 60 percent of all pass targets, with tight ends at 15 percent. The most noticeable shift in the pie is running backs have received 25 percent of targets.

Standout sophomore tailback Darius Taylor, who played receiver in high school in Michigan, netted four receptions (on four targets) for 48 years against Rhode Island.

Harbaugh estimated three of Taylor’s grabs last weekend came on check-downs from Brosmer, who goes through his progression, starting with options downfield first. When they weren’t open, he quickly gets the ball to the running backs closer to the line of scrimmage.

The term “check-down” can be considered a pejorative in football, given its low-risk nature. But that’s not how Harbaugh sees it. He pointed to Taylor turning one check down into a big gain against Rhode Island; Jordan Nubin, for example, did a similar thing against North Carolina.

“I think Max does an excellent job when he feels those underneath defenders get out, he’ll either show that he’s going to take a shot and he’ll come down knowing that the shot isn’t there,” Harbaugh said. “… It goes back to what I said, probably in the first time I talked about Max: (His) high-end processing ability. If the pictures screwed up right from the start, he knows exactly where to go, right from the get-go.”

Part of the Gophers schematic alterations has included using more two-back formations. Sometimes it has been two running backs (Taylor and Oklahoma transfer Marcus Major); other times it has been a running back and a receiver (Daniel Jackson or Cristian Driver).

That formation is another nod to getting the Gophers’ best players on the field at the same time.

When Brosmer was brought in from New Hampshire — where he often threw to running backs — a quote from Detroit Lions quarterback Jared Goff was circulated before spring practices. Goff was describing offensive coordinator Ben Johnson: “He listens to his players and adapts what we do well.”

That has been Brosmer’s experience so far in Minnesota. “It’s pretty well defined in this spot,” he said this week. “I think Coach Harbaugh and his staff collectively have done an amazing job putting us as a team in a really good spot.”

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The headlines this election cycle have been dominated by unprecedented events, among them former President Donald Trump’s criminal conviction, the attempt on his life, President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance and his replacement on the Democratic ticket by Vice President Kamala Harris. It’s no wonder other important political developments have been drowned out, including the steady drip of artificial intelligence-enhanced attempts to influence voters.

During the presidential primaries, a fake Biden robocall urged New Hampshire voters to wait until November to cast their votes. In July, Elon Musk shared a video that included a voice mimicking Harris’ saying things she did not say. Originally labeled as a parody, the clip readily morphed to an unlabeled post on X with more than 130 million views, highlighting the challenge voters are facing.

More recently, Trump weaponized concerns about AI by falsely claiming that a photo of a Harris rally was generated by AI, suggesting the crowd wasn’t real. And a deepfake photo of the attempted assassination of the former president altered the faces of Secret Service agents so they appear to be smiling, promoting the false theory that the shooting was staged.

Clearly, when it comes to AI manipulation, the voting public has to be ready for anything.

Voters wouldn’t be in this predicament if candidates had clear policies on the use of AI in their campaigns. Written guidelines about when and how campaigns intend to use AI would allow people to compare candidates’ use of the technology to their stated policies. This would help voters assess whether candidates practice what they preach. If a politician lobbies for watermarking AI so that people can identify when it is being used, for example, they should be using such labeling on their own AI in ads and other campaign materials.

AI policy statements can also help people protect themselves from bad actors trying to manipulate their votes. And a lack of trustworthy means for assessing the use of AI undermines the value the technology could bring to elections if deployed properly, fairly and with full transparency.

It’s not as if politicians aren’t using AI. Indeed, companies such as Google and Microsoft have acknowledged that they have trained dozens of campaigns and political groups on using generative AI tools.

Major technology firms released a set of principles earlier this year guiding the use of AI in elections. They also promised to develop technology to detect and label realistic content created with generative AI and educate the public about its use. However, these commitments lack any means of enforcement.

Government regulators have responded to concerns about AI’s effect on elections. In February, following the rogue New Hampshire robocall, the Federal Communications Commission moved to make such tactics illegal. The consultant who masterminded the call was fined $6 million, and the telecommunications company that placed the calls was fined $2 million. But even though the FCC wants to require that use of AI in broadcast ads be disclosed, the Federal Election Commission’s chair announced last month that the agency was ending its consideration of regulating AI in political ads. FEC officials said that would exceed their authority and that they would await direction from Congress on the issue.

California and other states require disclaimers when the technology is used, but only when there is an attempt at malice. Michigan and Washington require disclosure on any use of AI. And Minnesota, Georgia, Texas and Indiana have passed bans on using AI in political ads altogether.

It’s likely too late in this election cycle to expect campaigns to start disclosing their AI practices. So the onus lies with voters to remain vigilant about AI — in much the same way that other technologies, such as self-checkout in grocery and other stores, have transferred responsibility to consumers.

Voters can’t rely on the election information that comes to their mailboxes, inboxes and social media platforms to be free of technological manipulation. They need to take note of who has funded the distribution of such materials and look for obvious signs of AI use in images, such as missing fingers or mismatched earrings. Voters should know the source of information they are consuming, how it was vetted and how it is being shared. All of this will contribute to more information literacy, which, along with critical thinking, is a skill voters will need to fill out their ballots this fall.

Ann G. Skeet is the senior director of leadership ethics and John P. Pelissero is the director of government ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. They are among the co-authors of ” Voting for Ethics: A Guide for U.S. Voters,” from which portions of this piece were adapted. They wrote this column for the Los Angeles Times.

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There tends to be a sense of wariness around an American remake of an international film: a worry that the American version will squander the inherent qualities of the original; that the filmmakers and studio might take something singular and turn it into a bigger, shinier blockbuster. Ironically, that is exactly the case with writer/director James Watkins’ “Speak No Evil” — a remake of a 2022 Danish horror film of the same name by Christian Tafdrup — and yet it works, thanks to a rock-solid, sickeningly horrifying premise dreamed up by Tafdrup and his brother Mads, with whom he wrote his screenplay.

“Speak No Evil” is a horror film “of manners,” so to speak. A couple with a young daughter meet another couple with a son on vacation in Italy and become friendly. The couple with the son invite the other family to stay at their home for a weekend, where the environment becomes increasingly awkward and even dangerous. The question becomes, where does self-preservation prevail over politeness? When does survival supersede social grace?

The original Danish film is suffused with an existential bleakness and a crushing sense of dread. Yet, there are moments throughout where the characters might escape their horrible fate, where you shout at them to keep going, don’t turn around now. There’s a bit of a “Choose Your Own Adventure” quality to the setup where the audience can insert themselves: at what point do you leave? Where is your red line? What would you do here? Because we come to find out that this terrible scenario has happened repeatedly, one can imagine the different ways this might play out with different people, which is exactly Watkins’ take on the remake: with a new set of players, how does this unfold?

From left, Alix West Lefler, Scoot McNairy and Mackenzie Davis in “Speak No Evil.” (Susie Allnutt/Universal Pictures and Blumhouse/TNS)

In Watkins’ iteration, an American expat family who have just moved to London replace the Danish family; a working-class English trio from Devon take the place of the Dutch vacation friends who invite them for a visit to their farm in the West Country. The Americans have a sensitive, anxious daughter named Agnes (Alix West Lefler), the English have a withdrawn, mute boy, Ant (Dan Hough), whom they hope will be friends.

American husband Ben (Scoot McNairy) has his own set of issues that lead him to seek out a friendship with Paddy (James McAvoy), a funny, brutish, rough-and-tumble lad married to the sexy, easygoing Ciara (Aisling Franciosi). Ben, who has recently lost the job that brought them abroad, and whose marriage with strident Louise (Mackenzie Davis) is strained, is somewhat aimless and emasculated. Paddy is a confident, manly, back-to-the-land type, and he seems to hold the secret to masculine reinvigoration; the promise of his friendship is as intriguing to Ben as it is off-putting to Louise.

Yet Louise assents to her husband’s desires out of a sense of guilt and a feminine desire to please. She will squash her clanging inner alarm bells that go off every time Paddy offers her a slice of meat (she’s vegetarian), drives erratically, disciplines Ant harshly and consistently makes her uncomfortable. Her sense of empathy for Ciara and Ant overrides her impulse to flee until she can no longer ignore her instincts and her assertive American mama bear comes charging forth.

You don’t cast Davis, who once starred in a “Terminator” film, if that option isn’t on the table. And while the grinning, sinister McAvoy might grace the film’s poster, and McNairy’s Ben is the catalyst for the story’s engine, make no mistake, Davis emerges as the star of “Speak No Evil.” Her small, minute reactions as she’s trying to maintain the sweet wife image are as deft as her more powerful, action-oriented moments.

Watkins offers up a deeply faithful adaptation in the first hour, condensing a few moments here and there to make room for a more extended standoff and showdown in the climax. So yes, this American remake is the bigger, shinier version of the small, menacing Scandinavian film, boasting sweeping aerial photography, larger sets and pyrotechnics. It also more overtly explores themes of abuse cycles, embittered white male entitlement and complex marriage dynamics. The children, who are aged up, have more agency in the story too.

Perhaps for some, this will be an affront to the devastating, almost meaningless terror of the original, a cautionary tale about stepping outside one’s confines that offered no easy answers about its violence other than, “because you let me.” But in the remake, it is fascinating to see how Watkins teases out new themes, cultural nuances and endings with a whole new set of characters placed within this premise. Despite the differences, it is still a thrill to watch it play out in its own way.

‘Speak No Evil’

3 stars out of 4
MPA rating: R (for some strong violence, language, some sexual content and brief drug use)
Running time: 1:50
How to watch: In theaters on Friday, Sept. 13

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