Here's the transcript from him presser:
An Interview With:
COACH JERRY KILL
COACH KILL: I appreciate everybody coming out. I know you've had an active weekend with all the things that are going on here at the university, so I appreciate your commitment to coming here and getting the spring started with us.
We feel like we've had an outstanding off season, so to speak, since playing Texas Tech. I think we built on the way we played in the bowl game that carried over into the off season. Our kids have worked very hard, and I'm very proud of what their efforts have been.
I think as a group, I think we have come closer together, and I think our coaching staff has done a great job of getting ready and organized for the plan going into spring ball, and certainly want to compliment our strength staff.
To kind of give you some numbers or things I think that you always like to know about some people that have stood out. I think Coach Klein said that 95 percent of our young people improved in the strength, speed, quickness, vertical jump. So that's a large number when you can increase what you were the year before, and that's what you were supposed to do and we've kept everybody accountable.
Some outstanding efforts, there's been many, but Ra'Shede Hageman has had an outstanding off season. To give you an example of, you know, he benched 465 pounds, which is awfully strong. Squatted over 500 pounds, 350 hang clean, about a 36, 37 inch vertical jump. So he made some great strides in the off season.
A young man like Donnell Kirkwood, he's weighing 220 right now, benched 345 pounds, squatted 545, hang clean, power cleaned over 300 pounds. So again, that shows you a little bit. Some of those kids have jumped their strengths up 20, 30 pounds and did an outstanding job.
Josh Campion, a young man that started at right tackle for us, thought he had a great freshman year for him, and Josh is a young man that benched 405 pounds, squatted 585 and hang cleaned 350. So we talked about getting stronger. I'm just kind of showing you some examples.
Young man, Caleb Bak, who played right guard for us, benched 365, squatted 550, hang cleaned 340 pounds. That's a tremendous improvement for Caleb and where he's at, and we felt like we needed to get stronger up in the offensive line. Joh Christenson, a young man that walked on here, benched 355 pounds, squatted 455, hang cleaned 310 pounds. So that's giving you an example of how we're trying to build them in the weight room, recruit the length and build them in the weight room.
Mitch Leidner, our quarterback, one of our quarterbacks, benched 330 pounds, squatted 430 and cleaned 310; he's got four years left. So that tells you, again, the length and the job he's done.
Eric Murray, young man that played minutes for us last year that's a tremendous athlete, you know, had a great off season, one of the faster guys on the team, you know, benched 275, squatted around 400, cleaned 255. I think he had second or third fastest 10 yard time. Had an outstanding deal.
But that gives you some examples of what we're trying to do in the weight room and what the job our strength coach has done. And so we're pleased going into the off season with those things in mind.
Some of the goals from a defensive standpoint, you know, we really improved on defense from the first year to the second year. You know, I think this is the highest a Minnesota defense has been ranked in the last 10 seasons was this past year, and we improved in the secondary, we improved up front. However, there's some things that we feel like we need to get done better to be a really, really good football team.
And our emphasis in the spring will be to stop the run while preventing the big pass play, and that's the run and the play action pass. You know, we feel like we've gotta do a better job of that, and our goals at defense going into the spring is to hold our opponent, which will be our offense, three yards per attempt. Last year we averaged 3.8. So we want to drop that rushing yardage down.
I don't want to give up touchdowns in the red zone. We gave up some critical situations. We want to concentrate on being better in third down situations and try to bat up there in that 66 percent. Last year we were 58 percent on third down.
Continue the number of sacks and the pressures. We doubled that category a year ago. Now we need to triple it, and we gotta continue to get better at rushing the passer. Eliminate the big plays. I think that was an issue for us at times. That hurt us. And the big thing is as a whole football team, we're going to talk about is turnover ratio. We did a little bit of a study, and the teams that are on the plus category, the Top 25 teams, you know, we picked 25 teams and 25 of the better teams, is that all of them that were on the plus category won eight games or more. So we were minus two. So we need to improve in that area. If we can get in the plus column, we're going to win a lot of games.
From an offensive side of the ball, from a goal is that on first down you want to be a productive offense in our league. You need to average about four yards a pop. Okay. If not, you've gotta be able to go second down and get half the distance. Everybody with me on that? So you can be 3rd and 5. Defenses have less things they can do to you when you're 3rd and 5, 3rd and 4. They can't dial it up on you. If you're 3rd and 10 or 3rd and 12, you play right into defensive hands. So we've gotta do a better job and we're going to concentrate on that in the spring.
We need to get consistent execution. We've gotta play physical like we did in the last bowl game. That's who we want to be, and you know, again, cut down on the silly mistakes offensively. And then when we have opportunities to make plays, you know, we've gotta build chemistry between the quarterbacks and the receivers and making those critical plays, which I think will happen as these young people play and get used to each other.
Special team wise, we want to continue to get better fundamentally, and we'll spend a lot of time. We've taken about 48 players, and that's what they'll be doing. And it's all fundamentals. We've gotta fundamentally get better.
And you know, I think that, you know, it's one of those things where we also want to come out of the spring and say these guys are going to be some of the special team players we're going to rely on on coverage teams. A year ago we had to play 12, 13, 14 freshmen in some of those roles. We don't want to do that next year if we don't have to. So we want to identify some of our personnel in the special teams.
And you know, I think we got a great compliment from the assistant that worked for the Vikings that's headed to the University of Iowa. And I think the head coach at Iowa said, hey, I want to Minnesota does a good job at what they do in special teams. He said, I want to make sure we do some things like that. So I thought that was a good compliment.
And then the kicking game, we have to get we have to continue to push the program forward. We're going to be in games like we were against Texas Tech, and you have to win those games. You gotta win the close games. And how you do that, you gotta have a critical punt in a critical situation. You gotta be able to stick field goals in critical situations, and you gotta be able to get first downs to close a game out or you're going to give up a big play. I'll put our kids in those situations in the spring. So those are things there's many things we're going to concentrate on, but those are some of the main situations.
Injury report for the spring is Ed Olson won't go through the spring. I think I mentioned that. Roland Johnson will not go through the spring. However, they'll be doing a lot of work on their rehab. Zach Mottla and Pete Westerhaus at this point will not go through the spring.
Again, I appreciate everybody's attendance, and I'll take any questions that you may have for me.
Q. You mentioned Marcus in the green shirt. Is he also moving to corner?
COACH KILL: He is. A couple things, Marcus Jones will be going from wide receiver to corner. When we recruited Marcus, in high school he was a defensive back and a great defensive back; played corner, great speed, great quickness, made up with his size with his ability to be able to cover. And we're going to move him over to give us even more depth in the secondary. And that's his natural position, because I think some things that have happened at receiver.
And Devon Wright is a young man that's played running back for us that's a 4.4 speed person that we've had at running back, but he's got a little height to him, and we feel like his skill level, we worked him during bowl camp as receiver in some of those things, and he did a pretty good job, so we're going to start him out at receiver to use some of that skill that he has. And so those are two moves that come up right away that you may look for.
Also, understand in spring, you'll come out to practice and like Caleb Bak, you're going to say, well, Caleb's not there today, what happened. We have a lot of kids in class here at the University of Minnesota, so understand that when we open practice and you come, we're working around class schedules and situations of that nature. So we'll have some kids missing or coming in late to practice due to class schedule.
Q. Will Derrick Wells play some at corner?
COACH KILL: Derrick will probably play corner and safety. Play both. We had such great play out of our young safeties in the bowl game that allows us some flexibility with Derrick. And Derrick's a big corner, which you like in the Big Ten. You like that big, physical presence. And I think he's capable of doing both, and certainly in nickel situations, and so I think you'll see him at safety and corner.
But Antonio Johnson had a tremendous game in the bowl game, and we feel like we've recruited pretty well at safety in the secondary. So I think, you know, that allows us to have some flexibility with him and certainly with mismatches. You know, good teams are putting you know, sometimes you want him to be playing safety because a lot of people are taking their best receiver and putting him on the inside to get that matchup. So I think Derrick's got the flexibility to do both which would be a good thing.
Q. You talk about having losses at linebacker. What do you want to see out of Damien Wilson coming in?
COACH KILL: You know, I would think I would say as I look at the linebacking situation is we got five young men coming in. Damien is one of those, so we got four coming in. Damien's gotta come through. Last year in recruiting when we lost seven secondary players we hit the jackpot, and we did a really good job recruiting in the secondary. This year we had to do at linebacker, so we'll see how it works out.
But Damien's had a great off season, and look forward to seeing him. He'll play inside. He'll play the mike backer because he's 6'2, 250. He doesn't look it, but he is. He's a very good athlete. Jack Lynn will be playing inside, and Jack's a young man we redshirted that we feel like is going to be a really good player. And Jephte Matilus. Those three guys will start off in there inside.
On the outside, it's Sam and Will. James Manuel, as we went back through, really had a good year a year ago and played well, and so our expectations of James are that he's going to have a great year and he's worked hard.
Aaron Hill had a great year for us last year. Look for his productivity to continue to climb. The young man that we really gotta get reps and really needs to come through is Lamonte Edwards, and Lamonte's been in that situation, the transition of learning a new position. He's in a situation this spring because of our lack of depth, he's going to get plenty of reps, and that's what he needs. He just needs to play, because he has all the ability in the world. So we've gotta get him coached up.
We've taken Cedric Dicke, another young man that walked on here that's really had a productive spring, we've taken him from safety and moved him down to outside linebacker like we did James. Nick Rallis will play outside. So that gives you some ideas of what we're doing in there. But we are a little bit thin in there in the spring, but the people that are in there need a lot of repetition to get better.
And then I think we got some good players coming in. But again, we're going to approach the spring like we have nobody coming in. And whoever comes in, that's a great benefit, but right now we're going to really focus on the kids we have and make them better.
Q. With Edwards, have you wanted to see him put some weight on or is he kind of where you want him to be?
COACH KILL: Oh, he's bigger than that. I don't know what you know, again, you get into all those. He's never going to be a 230 guy. But we don't need a 230 guy that's gotta go out there and play on an inside receiver. Not very many people got them 230, 235 that can go play outside and walk out with all the zone read.
The tough thing that makes linebacker difficult is you gotta be able to walk over to No. 2 receiver and play in space and then you gotta go play Wisconsin and you gotta get an extra guy in the box. So that guy has to be if you can find one that's 250 pounds that can run 4.5, you'd love to have that. We feel like we've got one coming in. We've got two of them coming in, 6'4, 6'5 that can run like deer and can do that.
But right now you take a young man like Lamonte, he's a physical player. That's not his issue. He just needs to learn how to play, and he's going to get that opportunity. We'll continue to hope that he develops in there about 220, 225 is where we'd like to have him. But I think that with taking care of himself and nutrition and doing what he's supposed to do, I think he can get there.
But you know, right now you can't make them run fast. And he can do that. He's a very explosive player.
Q. How is Harbison looking in his recovery?
COACH KILL: I think, you know, I think everybody tries to compare people to Adrian Peterson. Adrian Peterson is on a different planet. And Marcus Jones has been able to recover quickly. He's kind of like Adrian Peterson in that matter.
But I think it's been a slower process than he wants. But he's not a year out. And so we'll need to be careful with him. But I think he just needs to get out there and play. He's been cleared to practice, and we'll be real cautious and careful with him. But you know, he just needs to get back in it; and is he where he was when he started? No. But nobody is coming off those surgeries, except for maybe Adrian Peterson.
Q. You talked about playing a lot of freshmen on special teams last year. Do you feel like you're going to reap some of the benefits this year with just the experience that they were able to get?
COACH KILL: Oh, I think so. It's just like anything, two or three years from now I'll go, boy, I wish we'd have redshirted those kids. You know, I don't think Eric Murray and Antonio and Travis, those kids all got some experience. They went to Iowa. They got to experience some of those tough places to play in. And we gotta be able to win in those places.
And so you know, their experience of having that opportunity to be out there, I think, is going to be a good thing going into this year. And certainly the way some of the young players played in the bowl game, they really had a good bowl game, and I think hopefully that leads right on into this next season.
And we were fortunate, and we've redshirted some kids that, you know, like Jack Lynn, we expect him to be a player now. We expect a whole lot out of Jack. He's worked hard. He's 6'3. I don't know what he's listed at weight wise there, but he can run and change directions.
And we get two of those young offensive linemen have gotten bigger and stronger, and Maxx Williams and Duke Anyanwu, they're going to be good players. And so this spring's real critical for guys like that. They've just gotta play.
And we're fortunate we had that bowl prep, and we had basically spring ball there and now we have another spring ball. And that's huge for us. The biggest thing we have to do is we gotta continue to be a physical football team, but we've gotta stay healthy. That's hard to balance.
And you know, we start spring ball here later because of the weather. Sometimes if you get somebody banged up during spring ball, you don't get them back. And so we've gotta be careful on how we do things. I'd like to start spring ball a lot earlier, but we're not in a situation to do that. So that health is a big concern. We've gotta get out of spring ball healthy, and yet be better.
Q. You talk about offensively you want to be in manageable situations on third down. How do you want to achieve that on first and second down? Are you going to run the ball?
COACH KILL: I think you have to mix it up. Oh, I think you have to mix it up. I think, you know, again, all I can go through is what we've done in the past through my 31 years of coaching, and you know, you gotta be willing to throw it on first down, and if you don't, let's say it's an incomplete pass on first down, that doesn't necessarily mean you gotta drop back and throw it. Get half of that yardage back, get it to 3rd and 6 or 3rd and 5 and you got a chance then.
I'll tell you who does a great job of that, they've won two national championships and they're right down the road; North Dakota State, do a great job of managing down and distance. And we've visited with them back and forth. So it's something that we've always been good at before. We've been in way too many third down and long situations since we've been here.
So I think you know, our running backs, again, I think we know a little bit more about our team. I think we've gotten a little bit stronger up front as we grow older, and it's just a maturation process. You know, we gotta continue to mature as a football team.
And again, we've had one recruiting class and this will be our second. So we still got work to do. I said when I got the job it's going to take some time. It's not going to happen overnight, but we improved from year one to year two and now we need to continue to improve year three.
Q. You look at your quarterbacks and your passing game right now, is what will you be focusing on?
COACH KILL: I guess the best way to start out is to tell you how we'll practice. We'll have one group going on one end, even though it's indoor when we start, and we'll have another group going on the other end. One's going to be running and play action pass; the other one's going to be throwing the quick game, and then they'll rotate after about seven minutes.
Repetition is what those kids need. They need repetition at throwing the same balls, the same routes, getting used to the receivers. We played three centers and three quarterbacks last year and still went to a bowl game. I don't know if there's very many people in the country can ever say that.
And so the continuity between the quarterbacks and receivers, and to credit those kids, they came back after the bowl game and they've been practicing on their own, so when they line up and the quarterback comes up and you gotta corner off, that quarterback can look out there and throw it. But you have you have chemistry to do that. So I don't think we ever developed a whole lot of chemistry because of the injury situations we've had at quarterback.
But we need to work on all phases of the game, but certainly through the way we're going to practice is going to be a little bit different. We won't have anybody standing around, certainly if we can stay healthy, and we'll have basically two defenses and two offenses when we get into team situations going all the time when we're teaching.
So hopefully that benefits everybody with repetition and timing and throwing and catching the ball. We need some guys to grow up and be play makers, you know, and I think that you look at the receiving core, and those kids have worked hard, and we gotta keep them healthy. Isaac Fruechte we've gotta keep healthy, and he's had a great off season. And K.J. Maye, we moved him out there to inside receiver because of his quickness, and we need to develop him like a lot of people are doing in that slot position, you know, like there's a reason Denver picked up Welker; not a big guy, but a guy that can be that four yard, five yard dump it off pass.
And Logan Hutton has improved. We've taken another young man, as I go through this, Ben Holcomb, 6'4, 6'5, 200 pound walk on from Wisconsin, we moved to receiver from safety. And I think he's had a great off season and done a great job. Crawford Tufts, this needs to be a big year for Devin, and we need to get him confident in doing the things he needs to do.
Devon Wright, moving him out there. Derrick Engel did an outstanding job in the bowl game. So we've got the pieces of the puzzle. We just need to keep them healthy, and they were young a year ago and hopefully they'll grow up and have learned. And that's our job. You know, our job. We gotta do a better job of coaching and teaching, and if we do that, I think we'll take the steps forward.
Q. At quarterback is it basically Nelson's job to lose or do you look at it as wide open?
COACH KILL: It's like anything. When you go in as a quarterback, he finished the season. He played in the bowl game, did some great things in the bowl game. Philip's going to go and we run the first group, he'll be out there with the first group, but he's going to have to prove it on an every day basis, just like every other player we have on the team. And we got two young guys I'm sure that are hungry and wanting to show what they can do, and we're excited about that, and we'll see how all that works out. But it's just like anything. You're going to have a guy that starts and somebody's gotta take the job. And that competition is good.
One of the things as I told our coaches, we're holding everybody accountable. We're going to hold our players accountable. We're going to hold our coaches accountable. And when we come in, it's going to be hard for me to meet with everybody that wants to meet with me, and we're going to take every film and we're going to grade it just like it's game day. We got 15 practices, we actually got, in our opinion, 15 game days. And we're going to grade them all 15 times. That way when a kid comes into my office at the end of spring, this is where you're at. You gotta prove it. That's the deal of being accountable and developing a consistent football team.
And again, we really haven't had the numbers. We're still a year behind in numbers, but we're getting a little bit closer. You know, I think I look at this, and we got a few guys missing practice, but we're three deep in some areas that last year we were about a player and a half deep. So we're starting to get some numbers, but we're a year away from being where I want to be.
Q. To follow up on that, Leidner and Nelson and Streveler and the other quarterbacks do, will that impact where you put Donovahn Jones in the fall?
COACH KILL: No, Donovahn, we'll start him out at quarterback. We told him we'd do that. He's young and we don't have to worry about that. He's very talented, tremendous talent. But the great thing is is that Mitch Leidner, if you interview him, he can go play another position today because physically he can run; he's strong. But he wants to be a quarterback, and we're going to give him the opportunity. We need we've had enough injuries; we've proven that.
And Streveler is a young man when we had him, he played quarterback and receiver when he came to camp. And he's just an outstanding athlete. I think he might have had the fastest 10 yard time. Maybe second fastest. But he can run; he can really. And he's gotten bigger. He looks good. I know that. I'm excited about seeing him run around.
Any time you walk up around your toes, you know, you see you're watching the basketball games and watching the tournaments, those guys that are up on those toes, and loose hipped, can't have enough of them.
Q. How many guys are you going to keep at center?
COACH KILL: Well, we'll work with three centers right now because Zach is hurt. And the three that we'll rep at center will be Joh Christenson, and then Bobek, who's now eligible to play, the transfer from Ohio State, and Ernie Heifort we're going to move in there and get reps at center. So those three young men will be getting reps at center.
And Ernie's done a good job. He was one of those kids two years ago he was 235 pounds and now he's 285.
Again, I talked to some of the former Minnesota players that have come by to see me, you know, those type of guys, when they were recruited how big they are and what they were when they were recruited. And they've all you know, there's been a lot of 6'7, 220 frames that all of a sudden end up at 290 or 285. So those kids are growing in the last two years a little bit.
Q. What have you seen from Philip just in the winter, coming off the season and being the quarterback and just from an intangible leadership aspect?
COACH KILL: I think not only Philip, but you know, all of them have done a great job of doing things on their own and getting their team out there; not ours, getting their team out there, getting their receivers out there, getting their tailbacks out there, making sure they get all the things that when we start spring ball we don't have to go way back. We can build off where we left. And that's what our goal is.
Q. The offensive line, some of the redshirt guys, Mayes, Orseske and Lauer were put on a timer, it seems like, since last year. How do you look at that group's depth right now with Olson being hurt?
COACH KILL: Tommy really again, you go back and review film when you're not in a hurry. During the season you kind of get blinded sometimes. He really played well when he got injured. And we need him healthy. So him going through the spring is not real critical. It's more critical for him to be in the weight room and get healthy. Some of these young guys need to go through the spring.
But our depth is better, and if you look at that, the blue, we have about four or five seniors all on offense next year. I mean we're just a young group of people. And those young people are getting bigger and stronger. So you know, the depth is good. That's why we were only able to take one scholarship offensive lineman.
Next year we gotta take three or four, but we're trying to balance out classes, because we didn't recruit we only had we didn't recruit, what, Dan, one offensive lineman in two years here. So now we've got a young group that, you know, they're all basically Eddie Olson is the only senior we got. So it's a young group that Lenkiewicz is another one people don't think about, but he started some bowl games due to some injuries and he's weighing 280, 290 now where he was a 265 guy getting pushed around. So they've worked hard.
Coach Limegrover challenged them. I think playing physical in the bowl game, even though we didn't win, excited them a little bit; and competition is good. You know, you can't sit up there and be an offensive lineman and say I can get comfortable today, you know, there's nobody behind me. When there's somebody pushing you, you know, when people get comfortable, that's when you get in trouble. And so I think we've got some areas that we've got a little bit of depth.
