Coach Kill is on the Sports Huddle

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Priort to kill's appearance on the radio, Dave and Sid talked a little recruiting. They said Minnesota has two transfer kickers: Chris Hawthorne, North Carolina State is on scholarship, which had already been announced, and another kicker is a walkon from Notre Dame. Name of the second was not given.

Go Gophers!!
 

DL65 said:
Priort to kill's appearance on the radio, Dave and Sid talked a little recruiting. They said Minnesota has two transfer kickers: Chris Hawthorne, North Carolina State is on scholarship, which had already been announced, and another kicker is a walkon from Notre Dame. Name of the second was not given.

Go Gophers!!
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They're slightly confused. Peter Mortell is a punter at Notre Dame HS in Green Bay who will be a preferred walk-on this fall. The name was announced first on Scout, probably a couple weeks ago or so.
 

Listening to him now....the more I hear this guy....the more I love this guy...he's a no none-sense type and down-to-earth guy. He's got a plan to build this program from the bottom up. I love it! I think that we got ourselves a good one....finally!
 

I got on late and caught Kill saying that "we are about five scholarships from where we want to be." Was he talking generally or saying that we would be taking five more in this class?
 


Kill's comments in response to questions asked:

1) Minnesota is 5-6 scholarships away from filling up this year's recruiting class.

2) Recruiting parents: Must recruit the parents, especially the mothers (at least 70% of recruiting). "You've got to capture the parents."

3) a) Want recruits that want to play at Minnesota; b)Connect with Minnesota coaches and build relationships; c) "You win with great players." You get great players by building strong relationships."

4) Kill met with Gary Patterson for about 2 hours last week when the coaches convention was in progress. They spent a lot time talking about getting better on both sides of the ball as well as strategy.

5) Taking Monday off from recruiting to meet face-to-face with current players. He said they'll be recruiting the current players.

6) Hesitated to say anything concrete about losing current players to academics; however, he said there might be a couple casualties (appeal process is in the works, however).

7) Recruiting high school players: They're focusing on areas that they know and are known and the players that are on their radar.

8) They'd like to develop coaching relationships for recruiting in New Jersey and the Maryland area.

9) Kill also talked about the south Florida players that played for Gutekunst that have remained in the Twin City area. The players have come in and visited with Coach Bill Miller who was on Gutekunst's staff. (His remarks were in response to the image of Minnesota being cold with a lot of snow. He talked about the quality of life of Minnesota and its culture.)

Go Gophers!!
 

8) They'd like to develop coaching relationships for recruiting in New Jersey and the Maryland area.

Curious about this one. Why New Jersey and Maryland?
 

station19 said:
8)
Curious about this one. Why New Jersey and Maryland?
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Coach Kill mentioned that he had connections there. I'm not sure how. I don't recall many recent Gopher recruits from Maryland, but there have been a few noteworthy ones from New Jersey when Mason was coach. Greg White and Asad Abdul Khaliq come to mind.
 

DL65 said:
4) Kill met with Gary Patterson for about 2 hours last week when the coaches convention was in progress. They spent a lot time talking about getting better on both sides of the ball as well as strategy.
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Hopefully finding out TCU's strategy for beating the badgers.
 




station19 said:
8) They'd like to develop coaching relationships for recruiting in New Jersey and the Maryland area.

Curious about this one. Why New Jersey and Maryland?
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Traditional Penn State territory. Easier to recruit in Penn State's backyard than OSU.
 

dpodoll68 said:
They're slightly confused. Peter Mortell is a punter at Notre Dame HS in Green Bay who will be a preferred walk-on this fall. The name was announced first on Scout, probably a couple weeks ago or so.
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No way! :rolleyes:
 

Wonder who we may lose due to grades?? I hope Carter and Hageman got it straight because they both have high ceilings. Dont really know who else was struggling though? Joshua Tauefa??
 



Now We Know Why Mason Couldn't Recruit!

He simply didn't convince the PARENTS. A number of people that were on the inside of Mason's program informed me when he was canned, that he didn't step into a recruit's living or dining room (with Mom & Dad) the last 4 - 5 years of his tenure.

Bottom line after they won a few games he got lazy and/or frustrated and simply collected his check and headed to the bank. (no, not the new stadium)
 


BilldGopher said:
This is from the start at Pittsburgh State University for Coach K and many of his staff.

Go Gophers!
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I'm not sure if this is tongue in cheek or not...but it is Pittsburg, Kansas (population 19,000).
 

I wonder if he developed some of those New Jersey connections when he was coaching at Emporia State (KS)? I know historically there has been some recruiting pipeline built up there (New Jersey) to ESU and maybe Coach Kill picked up those pipelines while there?
 

KU4LIFE said:
I wonder if he developed some of those New Jersey connections when he was coaching at Emporia State (KS)? I know historically there has been some recruiting pipeline built up there (New Jersey) to ESU and maybe Coach Kill picked up those pipelines while there?
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Where is Bill Miller's connections?

There is nothing wrong hitting those fertile recruiting grounds.
 

DL65 said:
9) Kill also talked about the south Florida players that played for Gutekunst that have remained in the Twin City area. The players have come in and visited with Coach Bill Miller who was on Gutekunst's staff. (His remarks were in response to the image of Minnesota being cold with a lot of snow. He talked about the quality of life of Minnesota and its culture.)

Go Gophers!!
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He made mention of something close to 14 of 19 players from southern Florida under Gutekunst still live here and the people and what the Twin Cities have to offer as the reason.
 

The big time contract extension for Mason leads me to believe that Mason was pretty darn good and that maturi and prexy b KNEW they couldn't/wouldn't/shouldn't get aTCF BANK STADIUM deal done in the legislature as well as a stadium naming rights deal done with Cooper @ Twin Cities Federal without Mason signed up for a LONG time. Sorry wahoo....your stories don't interest me and I'm not buying a word of what you are trying to sell. Otherwise, WHY the long-term contract extension at the end of the 2005 season????????? Your guy prexy b insisted that it would have to be a LONG-TERM, big buck contract extension from everything I have heard. That's the way it went down and that is EXACTLY what happened. History tells us that maturi and prexy b were SO taken by Mason and SO sold on what he had done that they would ONLY go long-term with him when it came to the contract extension. And, that's the way it was...

; 0 )
 


Every single thread entitled "Coach Kill is on the Sports Huddle", Wren comes in to salivate over the greatness that was Glen Mason. It's comical.
 

imthewalrus said:
The big time contract extension for Mason leads me to believe that Mason was pretty darn good and that maturi and prexy b KNEW they couldn't/wouldn't/shouldn't get aTCF BANK STADIUM deal done in the legislature as well as a stadium naming rights deal done with Cooper @ Twin Cities Federal without Mason signed up for a LONG time. Sorry wahoo....your stories don't interest me and I'm not buying a word of what you are trying to sell. Otherwise, WHY the long-term contract extension at the end of the 2005 season????????? Your guy prexy b insisted that it would have to be a LONG-TERM, big buck contract extension from everything I have heard. That's the way it went down and that is EXACTLY what happened. History tells us that maturi and prexy b were SO taken by Mason and SO sold on what he had done that they would ONLY go long-term with him when it came to the contract extension. And, that's the way it was...
; 0 )
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The short answer is that Bruininks and Maturi were wrong to give Mason the extension and they screwed up his firing as well. There is no better proof of this than Mason would be coaching another team by now. AD's at every Division I school with an opening have taken a pass on Mason since he was fired.

Recruiting is as important as coaching in Division I college football. Mason himself said it was 80% but I am going with 50%. Since Mason only had success coaching the offense he was only 25% of a coach. Brewster was 50% of a coach. And now it seems Gopher football fans might have a 100% coach. We will see.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Every single thread entitled "Coach Kill is on the Sports Huddle", Wren comes in to salivate over the greatness that was Glen Mason. It's comical.
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Is Sid and wren the same person? They both seem to be living in the past, say the same things over and over again, and seem to be getting senile.
 

UpnorthGo4 said:
The short answer is that Bruininks and Maturi were wrong to give Mason the extension and they screwed up his firing as well.
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I agree 100% with this. When Mason was playing hardball in negotiations and dragging it out in public until the bowl game, I would have looked at him and said "You're good, but you ain't this effin' good! See ya on the flip side."

As for Kill, I think what we're seeing is the importance of hiring someone with head coaching experience. He's organized and he knows who he is as a coach and what he wants the product to look like. I always respected Brewster's energy, but it was clear after the switch from Dunbar to Fisch that he didn't really have an idea of what he wanted the team's identity to be and that's a lot more important than most people seem to think it is.
 

JM did screw up the extension, but remember the stadium seems like it was a lock looking back at it, but it was not. It was a narrow window in time when the legislature had the money and Pres Bruininks had done the sales work, and TCF had stepped up as the lead sponsor. They did not want it screwed up by firing a guy perceived as a solid coach, even if he was levering the hell out of them.
Mason was a good coach, but nearly as good as he thought he was. A little recruiting effort by him and he would still be coaching.
 

station19 said:
8) They'd like to develop coaching relationships for recruiting in New Jersey and the Maryland area.

Curious about this one. Why New Jersey and Maryland?
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Excuse the mention of Wisconsin, but about 15 years ago I lived in Dallas and Alvarez came there and spoke at a Badger alum function. Some guy asked why he didn't recruit Texas more. He said that he prefers New Jersey, NY and Connecticut, etc., because there are good players there and they have little allegiance to (play for) their home state's flagship universities. I think that he has a point, and perhaps Kills sees things similarly.
 

denguegopher said:
Excuse the mention of Wisconsin, but about 15 years ago I lived in Dallas and Alvarez came there and spoke at a Badger alum function. Some guy asked why he didn't recruit Texas more. He said that he prefers New Jersey, NY and Connecticut, etc., because there are good players there and they have little allegiance to (play for) their home state's flagship universities. I think that he has a point, and perhaps Kills sees things similarly.
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Perhaps Alvarez had just come from a recruiting visit with Ron Dayne and his parents.
 

No allegiance to playing at Rutgers or Temple!!

Are you kidding??
 

corcoran1 said:
JM did screw up the extension, but remember the stadium seems like it was a lock looking back at it, but it was not. It was a narrow window in time when the legislature had the money and Pres Bruininks had done the sales work, and TCF had stepped up as the lead sponsor. They did not want it screwed up by firing a guy perceived as a solid coach, even if he was levering the hell out of them.
Mason was a good coach, but nearly as good as he thought he was. A little recruiting effort by him and he would still be coaching.
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I agree with your take. Also, they didn't want the embarrassment of a big coaching buyout gumming up the works with the legislature. Like you said, there was a very short window when all the stars were aligned, and there was zero room for error. That's also partially why Monson got an extra season. Well, half a season, anyway.
 

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