Bohl - long
Bohl was at Nebraska. That's true. He was run off by them and landed at NDSU. His first years he won with the previous coach, Bob Babich (currently on the Chicago Bears staff) players. Babich had recruited some pretty good players and Bohl was the beneficiary of that. He thought that that success would be enough to propel him back to the big time. Because of that, he got lazy on the recruiting part of the business thinking he would be elsewhere. When nothing materialized, he had no choice but to stay and that lack of attention hurt him in 2008 and 2009. Once he realized that he was going to be hanging around he started hitting the recruiting trail again and raised the level of talent.
I played at NDSU 30 years ago and then coached at two other colleges after that. I was not good enough, frankly, to play for Minnesota. I have always been a Minnesota fan though. Saturday night was my first Minnesota game in 20 years as I was out of the area. While I love BOTH schools, and even though I am a NDSU alum, deep in my heart I was rooting for Minnesota. I couldn't really lose either way though. The one thing that shocked me though was how little talent and speed Minnesota seems to have on their roster. Both Minnesota's lines were dominated.
I think that when NDSU moved up a class, they were smart enough to realize their niche and who they were and planned accordingly. They knew that they were never going to get the top guys so they decided that the next tier was full of good players as well and that they just needed time in a strong program and a chance to be coached up and developed. From what I heard from a couple of people that's what Kill is trying to do as well. A couple of old coaching pals, now retired, said thay have visited a couple of practices last spring and this fall. Their opinion, and they don't really know Kill or his coaches personally, was that only about half the players on this team were Big 10 caliber players. I'm sure everyone is frustrated with the years of losing and the endless cycle of coaches, but I would say give him a chance to get some talent in here and develop it. If he still doesn't have any success, then yes, move on. Four games isn't enough of a yard stick to measure any coach. I'm sure it's been said on this board already, but, I don't care what kind of coach you bring in, if you don't upgrade your talent level no one will win here. Good luck to your team going forward and Go Gophers!