As crowd-surfing goes, P.J. Fleck might not have had his best takeoff, leaping a bit short and needing his players to boost his legs a bit before they could toss him airborne like a rag doll during the Gophers’ postgame locker room celebration.

Twenty minutes or so earlier, Max Brosmer emerged from a scrum of his teammates and Southern California defenders with a touchdown and the decisive points — after a replay review reversed an initial ruling — on a fourth-down tush-push quarterback sneak inside the Trojans 1-yard line.

And 15 minutes after that, Koi Perich sat atop a mass of humanity that stormed the field at Huntington Bank Stadium, taking in the revelry from a spot as lofty as he occupied when he leaped to make the game-sealing interception with nine seconds left.

The victory not only ended a six-game Big Ten losing streak for the Gophers, it also rewarded Fleck and his coordinators for some bold decisions; demonstrated what a cool, efficient leader Brosmer can be; and showed off a budding star in Perich.

“My pregame speech was 10 seconds, ‘Let it rip!’ That’s it. That’s all I told them,” Fleck said. “And they did. They let it rip.”

If ever there was an example of a fan base immediately falling in love with a player, it’s Gophers fans with Koi Perich. The true freshman from Esko, Minn., had them at “hello” because as the state’s top recruit, he stayed true to his verbal commitment to Fleck and the Gophers and said “no” to Ohio State when coach Ryan Day came calling to northern Minnesota last December.

Perich has combined immediate productivity with a flair for the dramatic.