Minnesota football coach P.J. Fleck defended his program, a day after a report published alleged mistreatment of players.

On Thursday, during Big Ten media days, Fleck called them “baseless allegations.”

Former Minnesota players told Front Office Sports that Fleck would overlook positive drug tests and other team rules violations for players who had accumulated enough goodwill through a points system called Fleck Bank.

“First of all, the Fleck Bank, mostly used in 2017 and ‘18, was an analogy used in a team meeting talking about the more you invest into a program, the better experience you’re going to get out of it,” he explained.

“As a head football coach when you come in and you don’t know anybody, the guys that do really good things are going to have a really good experience. If you’re not doing all the right things, you’re probably not going to have a great experience.

“There was no currency ever exchanged. There was no coins that ever existed. It was an analogy simply to explain investment for life, a life lesson of investment. Simply that.

“No one ever got out of any type of punishment for that.

The former players and others said excessive workouts were used as punishment and described a cultlike culture that contained significant intimidation.

“These allegations are baseless,” Fleck said Thursday. “We have full support of our athletic director, Mark Coyle, and our university leadership. This is a similar story that gets peddled every single year, and the majority of the players have been dismissed or removed from our football team. We also have around a half-dozen anonymous reporting avenues within our football program that players can go to if they have an issue.”

Mark Heim is a reporter for The Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @Mark_Heim. He can be heard on “The Opening Kickoff” on WNSP-FM 105.5 FM in Mobile or on the free Sound of Mobile App from 6 to 9 a.m. daily.