Coach Kill hopes he’s the one smiling after Saturday’s rivalry game!
Here are all of the press conference notes from today:
• We had a good win last week, against a team that won 11 games last year, and had outstanding QB play.
• We look forward to playing Iowa, this is a time when defensive coordinators earn their money. We’re going to a team that’s very physical and runs the ball. We’re looking forward to the challenge.
• I don’t want to say a statement and not be truthful (on QB situation) – we’ll start out practice and see how things go. Phillip would need to be 100% for us to give him the green light. All the time, we’ve reped bot QB’s, we just hope he’s healthy.
• Foster Bush has really played well, Tommy Olson is still learning center. We’re young up there, even though some have played. We’ve gotten better each week upfront, we’ll find out how much better on Saturday.
• HS football in MN – it’s been good to me, when you look at our roster. You look at the size of the state, there’s not going to be as many as in Texas. It has to do with population, more than anything. The more schools, the more players. HS coaches have been A+ to me, I think we’ve kept most of the players in state. We’ve had some get out, but that happens everywhere. We’re doing the best we can. We’ll continue to work hard through it, it goes in cycles. Sometimes there will be 25-30 players, some there will only be 5-6.
• When a kid’s healthy, we’ll put him back in the line-up. You got guys who raise the occasion, it gives you a different perspective. You put the best player in.
• What happened in the 2nd half defensively, we inserted another defensive back, and did some things differently. They had 2 weeks to prepare for us, with 5 wide, we had to prepare for that. We challenged the kids with some intensity level. They played 2 high safeties. We ran the ball. They stayed back, and we continued to run the ball. We took what they gave us. The biggest formula for winning is not turning over the ball and getting penalties, and getting them to turn it over.
• You gotta take what the defense gives us. I think the big thing is having an efficient passing game, and make plays when you need to. We need more of those big plays on 3rd down. We need to throw with great accuracy and execution.
• We have a pool of 5-6 guys of WR’s that need to step up and get better, route running, execution, etc.
• The whole key for us defensively, you don’t prepare for one guy, you prepare for the guys upfront. You’ve got to play with a low pad level, stay in your gap, fit right as a linebacker, be able to tackle, to be good on defense.
• After last week, I think we can focus on anything. We’ve had enough distractions for a lifetime in the past 2 years. Our biggest thing is to make sure we play on Saturday.
• You don’t sleep when you’re in charge of 115 players.
• With Northern playing Iowa so well – can be helpful to prepare. They have a very talented football team. It helps us because we do some of the same things. With Iowa, I had our staff go and visit them, it’s how their coached. When you’re playing football. They all have quick hands, and get them inside. They’re never outside. They are fundamentally coached up.
• I worry about us getting better, but we won’t de-emphasize who we’re playing. We won’t talk a ton about last year, but we will give a reminder that we didn’t play well, and Iowa did.
• I congratulated the team for 5 minutes, then I told them they need to get ready for Iowa. I didn’t get much of chance to relax between winning one game and preparing for the other.
• They honestly just kicked our butts for 4 quarters. Very disturbing as a football coach. As simple as I can put it. I’m sure some of our kids that participated will remember how that was, and will be motivated and concentrated this year.
• Everyone says “you’ve gone a good job Coach Kill, so far” you’re only as good as your last game. We had 4-5 TO’s last year, if we have that again, we’ll have the same result.
• If you came in here on a Sunday, you’d probably think our team didn’t win, we point out every little error. There are some facts of winning, and we show those, and we show the dumb penalties. Whatever goes up on that screen is called “the daily news” – this is why we didn’t score, this is why we kicked a fg, etc. Are we going to get that correct? Yes, sir. That’s how we teach.
• There’s no margin for error. There’s a reason we’ve had success, but you’re only as good as your last game. Hopefully we have enough discipline to not make errors.