Phil Miller blog: If Gophers pursued Kill now, could they get him?

Donate To GopherHole

Fair question by Miller.. But my thought is, would Illinois or Kansas sniff out Kill at all?
 





Now I'm a fan of Phil, but asking hypothetical questions like this really aren't productive.

It's like having been married for 20 years and asking: if I pursued my wife now, would she marry me again? Kind of pointless.
 

Tough to say where he would have fallen in the searches at those schools. Like the Gophers I doubt he would have been the top choice at either place but I would be willing to bet that he would be near the top of the fall-back candidate list after the top targets were gone. He would have been a natural fit at either place so he would have at the very least been in the discussion and assuming Northern would have been in the mix for the MAC championship that would have helped legitimize his position.
 

Just my opinion...

But I think Illinois would absolutely be pursuing Jerry Kill. Of all of the lists that i've seen, the names haven't been much "glitzier" than Kill.

I've heard the list of coordinators:
Narduzzi
Chryst

and then i've heard some mid major coaches...
Schiano
the coach at Western Kentucky
coach at Toledo
Butch Jones (Cinci)

Assuming Kill would have had another really good Northern Illinois team, I think his name belongs on that list (plus he's an Illinois guy).
 

Depends on things you can't know: Would Kill take a lesser job at Kansas over going to Minnesota? Would Kill have had the same level of success at NIU? and most importantly would Kill have had the on field episode at NIU that he had at Minnesota?

I don't think any BCS school would hire Kill 3 months or so after such a scary health scare.
 



The seizure issue would certainly have made things interesting because had that happened at NIU with the subsequent hospitalizations and follow-up episodes it would have made him a far tougher sell to the fans and administration. For the U it was a known issue but the episodes were far enough in the past that I don't think it was really viewed as that big of a deal.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Just my opinion...

But I think Illinois would absolutely be pursuing Jerry Kill. Of all of the lists that i've seen, the names haven't been much "glitzier" than Kill.

I've heard the list of coordinators:
Narduzzi
Chryst

and then i've heard some mid major coaches...
Schiano
the coach at Western Kentucky
coach at Toledo
Butch Jones (Cinci)

Assuming Kill would have had another really good Northern Illinois team, I think his name belongs on that list (plus he's an Illinois guy).
Click to expand...

Agree. If Kill is at NIU in 2011 and they win the MAC (as they did), he probably is in the top tier of "move-up" candidates.

If Chryst wants to move up, he'll have his chance.
 

What do you mean by "he's an Illinois guy"? He grew up in Kansas and a lot of his coaching took place there.
 

I think Bob_Loblaw meant that Kill had a lot of college coaching experience in Illinois (SIU, NIU).
 



Are either Illinois or Kansas better jobs than Minnesota? Kansas is home, and Illinois had been home for a long time. Notwithstanding, Kansas may yet find itself on the outside looking in in the conference shuffle nonsense and even at six wins, Illinois looks in dire straights and the Chicago pros and competition from Northwestern and ND seem to cast long shadows over the state, perhaps more so than the market here. At any rate, a worthless hypothetical on account of a 24 sports news cycle.
 

Swede said:
Are either Illinois or Kansas better jobs than Minnesota? Kansas is home, and Illinois had been home for a long time. Notwithstanding, Kansas may yet find itself on the outside looking in in the conference shuffle nonsense and even at six wins, Illinois looks in dire straights and the Chicago pros and competition from Northwestern and ND seem to cast long shadows over the state, perhaps more so than the market here. At any rate, a worthless hypothetical on account of a 24 sports news cycle.
Click to expand...
ND as in Notre Dame? That's in Indiana.
 

zambam said:
ND as in Notre Dame? That's in Indiana.
Click to expand...

ND being in South Bend(very close to Gary(which is close to Chicago), and having a large Chicago alumni base impacts greater Chicago heavily. Especially Chicago area Catholic schools.

BTW Talked to some Illini fans after the Gopher Illini game and they said Kill would have gotten a long hard look. Many of them wanted Kill.
 

EG#9 said:
Depends on things you can't know: Would Kill take a lesser job at Kansas over going to Minnesota? Would Kill have had the same level of success at NIU? and most importantly would Kill have had the on field episode at NIU that he had at Minnesota?

I don't think any BCS school would hire Kill 3 months or so after such a scary health scare.
Click to expand...

Kansas is not a lesser job than Minnesota. There are very few worse BCS jobs at this point than Minnesota, and Kansas ain't one of 'em.
 

dpodoll68 said:
Kansas is not a lesser job than Minnesota. There are very few worse BCS jobs at this point than Minnesota, and Kansas ain't one of 'em.
Click to expand...

Glen Mason might disagree. As bad as it is now, it's not like it was much better 17 years ago in the Dome. And I don't think Kansas' stock has changed much since then either. At least Kill doesn't have to bow and kiss Tubby's ring here, even if his paycheck is smaller.
 

howeda7 said:
Glen Mason might disagree.
Click to expand...

I doubt it. Let's not forget, he didn't leave Kansas for Minnesota, he left Kansas for Georgia. When he had a change of heart, he was (bizarrely) accepted back for one more year at Kansas. The well was poisoned, and he was going to get out as soon as he could for the best job that he could get, which was Minnesota.
 

NIU won the MAC with Kill's recruits. He would have been a hot candidate. Recruiting at KU, a basketball school in the prairie vs. Minnesota, the only Big ten school in a major city with brand new facilities? Because He knows Kansas so well he would not have taken KU. KU is like recruiting football at Indiana.
 

dpodoll68 said:
Kansas is not a lesser job than Minnesota. There are very few worse BCS jobs at this point than Minnesota, and Kansas ain't one of 'em.
Click to expand...
I dunno. It's a basketball school that just did something even SEC schools don't do...fire their FB coach after 2 seasons. The expectations seem slightly out of whack with their actual place within the Big 12. Throw in the recent AD scandals which puts the dept in a bit of a mess and that isn't exactly a winner of a spot to step in to (even with a new AD in place). Kill likely would have been very interested given his background, but as an overall job I don't know how you justify it as being better than MN even with all this school's issues.
 

I'd say Coach Kill probably feels pretty damn good about being here with a 7 year deal. It's hard to say if he would get that any where else. I'll also guess that Coach Kill's staff feels pretty good about being here with a 7 year deal for their head coach as well. That, in turn, should make Coach Kill feel even better about being here with a 7 year deal!

For better, or for worse...but no where in between, the U of M needs to realize that they have given Coach Kill a 7 year deal. So, it would do them NO GOOD, what-so-ever to have any kind of "buyer's remorse" or to casually look at which coaches are available right now. They just have to MAKE IT WORK with the one they hired for the next seven years...and hope that he turns that into a career-long TENURE arrangement between he, his staff and the Unviersity of Minnesta...

; 0 )
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom