Jerry Kill has 20+ reasons to smile on Signing Day!!
Here are my live notes, not verbatim, for those of you who couldn’t watch his press conference.
• It went really well, my best recruit’s is drinking coffee in the back here, Rebecca, she’s going to play slot receiver for us. We feel like this is a really good class for us. We worked really hard to put together this class. We had specific needs. We moved our team forward. It’s a class that’s got the cold weather skill, that’s important here. We had certain focuses on certain positions. We’ve done some good things, being smart with our personnel and how we recruit. We’ve added a tremendous amount of depth to our football team, we’ve done that each year.
• On what cold weather skill – kids that have played in cold weather. Gentry has played in Ohio, James, a St. Louis kids. We have not had a great winter, when they come to my house and see a 10 foot snow drift, it’s not easy.
• Gibson – he is multi-purpose. He had a visit at South Carolina, and he stayed with his commitment. He has a really good Dad, who felt really good about our staff. It’s a great gift for us. He’s a great bball player, just a really athletic kid.
• We’ve got to improve our offense. We signed an entire defensive line, we only signed one D-back, because we’re really loaded, next year we’ll take 3. We would have taken 1 more, we had a kid coming our way but went to Vanderbilt. We needed receivers, guys that are flexible. Guys that could play TE, that can do different things. Elmore – he said 1/2 of his house is in MN, and 1/2 is in WI, he’s a tremendous athlete. 360 dunk, recruited by everyone, he made a commitment that he was coming to the U of MN, and he and his coach just shut down recruiting.
• We’ve been fortunate that several people just shut down their recruiting. You look at Connor Mayes, his brother got a big push last year, and he wouldn’t turn. Connor was recruited by everyone in the country. He stayed committed, that’s not always easy to do. The big fella can play now. We built relationships while recruiting. Our QB was offered by Nebraska, and 2 other Big 12 teams, but with relationships with coaches and things, we were able to move our program forward.
• I don’t know if you watch the Super Bowl and the Seahawks, we put all our emphasis on defense.
• We want competition, that’s why Pete Carroll was successful at USC, there’s competition to stay good. Alabama loses a lot more than you think when you have competition. We needed help at the skill positions on offense. Those 2 freshman wide receivers are going to be good.
• Melvin Holland is a great kid. They’ve got length and speed, and that’s how you win right now.
• Talk to Jeff Jones, it’s about relationships. That kid was a freshman when he came to camp. He was different. We built a relationship for a long time, the relationship with Ra’Shede helped, the guys’ going to be a 1st round draft pick. Hageman told Jones that Kill will do anything to help him get there if you work hard for him. The way I look at Washburn, there was 500 people there, that’s 500 more fans.
• I never really mentioned Jeff Jones’s other visits. Life is about trust. He always wanted to play at MN. It’s hard when other schools come and you have a lot of people in your ear. Deep down, he’s always wanted to play in his home state. He told me that when he was a freshman. He’s a smart kid now, and deep down, he stayed with it. I don’t think you’re ever confident in this deal, in recruiting. Coach Claeys had a big part of getting him. Do I get a little concerned when you’re talking about Florida, Michigan, and a great All-Star game…that can make your head spin. It makes you a little nervous, but I was never like “no way.” because we built a good relationship. The success that Ra’Shede has had here had an influence. I surprised Ra’Shede and Jimmy Ward at the Senior Bowl, I think those kids, they tell him “that’s important” and it’s important to our state. That will bring some competition to the party, and we want that if we want to compete in the Big 10. When we got in and played WI and MSU, if we had a little more fire power…that would have helped.
• I’m not going to comment on all that because I don’t know if you know the whole story, but I’m not worried about it. We’ve done our research.
• The great thing about recruiting a kid from Canada, actually 2 of them – we built a relationship with him in the summertime, Julian is a good looking kid. They do high school 19/20 years old, so he’s mature. He speaks 4 different languages. Spanish, German, English and French. He’s well educated. He’ll be further along because he’s older.
• Will the recruiting continue? We have junior day on Sunday, and it starts all over again. I’m always got a couple of things in the pocket in case something happens. But we’re not going to take somebody at the last second. We also put Peter Mortell on scholarship, that’s one less schollie, but I don’t look at it that way, he deserves it. We had 7 starters last year that walked on and we rewarded with a scholarship.
• Perra is a huge gift for us, I explained to him our situation, we’ve had him in camp. His Coach, I’ve known for a long time. If his coach tells me something, I’m going to believe. He wanted to be at MN, he didn’t care about scholarships anywhere, that’s a heck of a recruit for us. An A plus family and an A-plus coach.
• You recruit good players, you’re not going to get them overnight. Ohio State may do that, but we have to work work work. You’ve got to have a back up plan. All 3 of the receivers we got, had what we wanted because they fit into what we do. Brian Anderson did a great job, he built a relationship with the kid and his Dad. All 3 of them come from very winning programs. Sometimes it’s not bad to know how to win.
• It’s the 3rd class, maybe the most important class. When you’re building a program, that class is the one that turns the tide. Our APR is one of the highest in the nation. We have to continue to recruit, and put pressure on the other players to improve. They all can run, they all have length. You look at what length can do for you – like Michigan State, we’re very similar to them.
(On driving for the 1st time last night) – It is true, it’s the 1st time in 2 years that I’m driving. All those people that speculated that I can’t do certain things, I can. I beat cancer. I can’t say I drove well. I hadn’t drove in 2 years, and I’m sitting there coming back from Joe Sensors. My wife was instructing me, bottom line is I did it. I told everybody that I recruited, that didn’t effect it at all, I told them how it was, and it might of helped us, I was straight forward, and not everyone is. I’ve got a chip on my shoulder, and so do these kids.