Competition was a lot better than just posting the won loss record. There have been articles about his involvement and spurring on the "Nothing Short of Greatness" and the athletes village. There were also plenty of articles about how low the APR was under Brewster and the Gopher football program was on academic probation and was 1 year away from losing scholarships. I was season ticket holder under, Brewster and Kill, you can post the win loss records all you want, we were never close to beating either Michigan or Nebraska under coach Brewster, and only competitive against the Badgers in 1 half of one game his whole tenure.
Being competitive against everyone, those things happened under Kill, and he beat Iowa twice something Brewster never did. We were a half away in 2015 in Madison from going to the Big 10 title game. These things happened, he Kill was a good football coach and program builder. There is more to college football than the Win lost record, even if you post the record. Kill graduated a lot of players, this matters.
This has nothing to do with Claeys or even the current coaching staff under Fleck, Kill did more than what the win loss record shows, easy to judge by just posting the win loss record or conference record. The Gophers were at rock bottom of the Big 10 conference, when Kill got to Minnesota, and we were turned down by at least 5 other coaches, including one Michigan fired.