Comprehensive Q&A with Kill from Marcus, lots of good stuff

[BleedGopher]

Long Q&A with Kill. A few interesting nuggets:

Q: Can you really count on redshirt freshmen Isaiah Gentry, Melvin Holland Jr. and Desmond Gant to be playmakers right away in their first year?

A: Absolutely. There's no question about that. They could have in the bowl game, to be honest with you. I would have loved to have them in the bowl game. You don't get many young people in double coverage just go up and get it.

Isaiah Gentry is one of those guys who can do that at 6-foot-4 and 205 pounds. We got weight on him. He runs a 4.4 in the 40 and can get up and go get a ball with his length. When we ran those guys over the summer, they were running like 21-plus (GPS tracker). Those guys are top-five speed guys on our team. They've got athleticism and speed like (running back) Berkley (Edwards).

Melvin has been one that has improved the most as the year has gone on.

Q: Would you be surprised if a member of your coaching staff leaves for a better job after such a successful season?

A: I've had opportunities in my life. That stuff happens every year at every level. The better you get, the more those opportunities occur. Both of my coordinators have had several different opportunities. We get along good. But you never know if that grass is greener on the other side in this business. You go do something for a lot more money and get fired a lot quicker. At the same time, you can't turn down $1 million if you were offered that kind of money. You just take care of the people the best you can. If somebody gets an opportunity to be a head coach, then you want to help them. But there are some guys on our staff who have been head coaches and don't want to anymore because they see what I go through. There's a whole lot of difference between being a head coach and an assistant coach.

http://www.twincities.com/sports/ci_27257086/gophers-football-q-coach-jerry-kill

Go Gophers!!

 

[Iceland12]

Thanks.Yep lots of good stuff. Should be good reading even for the "non-experts" around here.


Q: Will the defense be a lot better as well?

A: Each year, I said we would have a better team. And I feel like this next year we will have a better team. Because we get (defensive tackle) Scott Ekpe back (from a knee injury) and we get all those defensive linemen that got experience (freshmen Steven Richardson, Gaelin Elmore, Andrew Stelter and Gary Moore).

Cody Poock back from a knee injury will have to step in for Damien (Wilson) at middle linebacker. We lose Cedric (Thompson) and Derrick (Wells) in the secondary. But at the same time, we got so much depth and athleticism there. We got the two best corners in the league without a doubt in my opinion (Eric Murray and Briean Boddy-Calhoun)..

A: .. I've had a lot people say things about the decision right before the half. But the No. 1 thing people told us going into the game from people we knew was don't get into a drop-back passing game against Missouri or you'll get into trouble. That's how we got a turnover. The last thing you want to do is a defensive end come in there and hit you and then you're down 17-7. I thought we were controlling the game going into halftime. If we ran a draw and busted it and got down to the 50-yard line, that's different. But those two defensive ends that they had controlled what you do a little bit.

 

[#2Gopher]

Interesting

 

[die hard gopher]

Very, very informative Q&A. Good to here Isaiah Gentry is up to 205. He was probably the skinniest guy on the team when he first got here. Also didn't think Poock will would play instead of Lynn although that could still change.

 

[Deleted_User]

"We feel like the first thing we got to do in the recruiting process and with some of the young guys, we got to get bigger and stronger on the defensive line.

WTF. 30 days to go before National Signing Day and he says the above. Was there some kind of myopic vision that you can just nab a guy at the last minute and be competitive down the line with an afterthought!

My support of Kill waned a bit.

 

[die hard gopher]

WTF. 30 days to go before National Signing Day and he says the above. Was there some kind of myopic vision that you can just nab a guy at the last minute and be competitive down the line with an afterthought!

My support of Kill waned a bit.

Mose Hall and Jamal Milan both have official visits schedules scheduled and the staff would be thrilled if those two plus Beebe, who they plan to start out on the D-line, made up this class.

 

[Spoofin]

WTF. 30 days to go before National Signing Day and he says the above. Was there some kind of myopic vision that you can just nab a guy at the last minute and be competitive down the line with an afterthought!

My support of Kill waned a bit.

So you interpret his statement as, "I never knew it before, but I guess you need big guys on the DL. No worries, we'll just grab one before NSD."

 

[Deleted_User]

So you interpret his statement as, "I never knew it before, but I guess you need big guys on the DL. No worries, we'll just grab one before NSD."

Well, yes, that is exactly how I interpreted that statement. It isn't an unreasonable point of view.

 

[Iceland12]

Originally Posted by Spoofin
So you interpret his statement as, "I never knew it before, but I guess you need big guys on the DL. No worries, we'll just grab one before NSD."

Well, yes, that is exactly how I interpreted that statement. It isn't an unreasonable point of view.

On the Off Topic Board why yes, that would be a perfectly reasonable point of view. While on The Daily Gopher apparently it would be side-splitingly hilarious too.

 

[John Galt]

If Kill says we can count on them to be playmakers, I'll count on them. He's usually been spot on with his analysis. I remember about a year and half ago he said Maxx was one of the better players on offense before he played a game, and that turned out ok. Kill certainly believes what he's preaching and is putting out the highest expectations yet for next year's team.

Is it September 3 yet?

 

[WanderingGopher]

Why did Kill only mention two of the three incoming RB commits?

 

[oleboy41]

Why did Kill only mention two of the three incoming RB commits?

Because Johansen is an LB?

 

[Halsey Hall]

We ate the ball at the half cuz Mizzo has 2 good DE's. OK, thanks, that explains why Mitch had his best passing game ever.

Will some college please offer Limegrover a head coaching job

 

[oleboy41]

We ate the ball at the half cuz Mizzo has 2 good DE's. OK, thanks, that explains why Mitch had his best passing game ever.

Will some college please offer Limegrover a head coaching job

Big difference between passing when you want to and having to go downfield vs passing WHEN you want to while the D still has to respect the run. Not saying I agree with the decision but I understand it

 

[Maverick]

Big difference between passing when you want to and having to go downfield vs passing WHEN you want to while the D still has to respect the run. Not saying I agree with the decision but I understand it

Not going for it at the half with that much time and timeouts remaining is a huge huge fail.. milk toast and like being afraid of your own shadow. Lack of killer instinct because your afraid will always end up with mediocrity at best. Kill failed this one big tine!

 

[Deleted_User]

Mose Hall and Jamal Milan both have official visits schedules scheduled and the staff would be thrilled if those two plus Beebe, who they plan to start out on the D-line, made up this class.

If they sign, I will be made the fool. I would enjoy being the fool in this case. By the way, Jamal has a visit with Illinois 3 days after his official to Minnesota.

 

[WHB Brewer]

WTF. 30 days to go before National Signing Day and he says the above. Was there some kind of myopic vision that you can just nab a guy at the last minute and be competitive down the line with an afterthought!

My support of Kill waned a bit.

I believe the intent is that they are going to start adjusting how they recruit D-Linemen. Their philosophy has always been to find guys with a good frame, then put on muscle over time, and make up for lack of size with speed. It may have worked at previous stops, but they have struggled in the B10 against teams with big O-Lines and like to run (OSU, Wisconsin, MSU, etc). For their entire tenure, they have been forced to play freshmen on the D-Line, especially on the inside. Most of young guys (i.e. Epke, Stelter, Nando-Lay) who were forced to play DT the past 2 seasons are undersized and get pushed around too much. The only one it has worked out is with Richardson, but his quickness and pad-level are sort of unique. My interpretation is they think they can try and target some of the bigger DL prospects that wind up in the SEC or other B10 schools. I'd like to see this change as well.

 

[Killjoy]

WTF. 30 days to go before National Signing Day and he says the above. Was there some kind of myopic vision that you can just nab a guy at the last minute and be competitive down the line with an afterthought!

My support of Kill waned a bit.

Really? Why on earth would you ever conclude that Kill is waiting until the last minute to grab a guy? I have no idea what your point is or how you got there, wherever that is.

 

[gopher7]

We ate the ball at the half cuz Mizzo has 2 good DE's. OK, thanks, that explains why Mitch had his best passing game ever.

Will some college please offer Limegrover a head coaching job

I have a hard time believing that Limegrover is the one deciding to sit on the ball at the end of a half. I would imagine that Kill says "let's sit on it", or "lets go for a TD" or "Let's go for a FG", and then limegrover calls plays using those directions.

 

[gopherdudepart2]

I'm over being annoyed by end of first half play call to kneel down

Thanks.Yep lots of good stuff. Should be good reading even for the "non-experts" around here.


Q: Will the defense be a lot better as well?

A: Each year, I said we would have a better team. And I feel like this next year we will have a better team. Because we get (defensive tackle) Scott Ekpe back (from a knee injury) and we get all those defensive linemen that got experience (freshmen Steven Richardson, Gaelin Elmore, Andrew Stelter and Gary Moore).

Cody Poock back from a knee injury will have to step in for Damien (Wilson) at middle linebacker. We lose Cedric (Thompson) and Derrick (Wells) in the secondary. But at the same time, we got so much depth and athleticism there. We got the two best corners in the league without a doubt in my opinion (Eric Murray and Briean Boddy-Calhoun)..

A: .. I've had a lot people say things about the decision right before the half. But the No. 1 thing people told us going into the game from people we knew was don't get into a drop-back passing game against Missouri or you'll get into trouble. That's how we got a turnover. The last thing you want to do is a defensive end come in there and hit you and then you're down 17-7. I thought we were controlling the game going into halftime. If we ran a draw and busted it and got down to the 50-yard line, that's different. But those two defensive ends that they had controlled what you do a little bit.

Doesn't matter if I agree with Kill or not to end the first half with the not calling time outs and the kneel down. He made the call for whatever reason(they did have good defensive ends) but as the CEO and guy and charge Kill made the call and stuck with it. It's his call to make ultimately it wasn't what I would have done or why they lost but he made the call and it was his call. Even with the mistakes in this football game there was a lot of opportunity for the Gophers to win so that was a bit of a let down for most fans I think. They must think of Poock as the middle linebacker and Lynn more as an outside linebacker now.

The most disappointing thing about the bowl game wasn't so much the loss but the fact that the special teams seemed shakey with the muffed bounce punt, the fake field goal and onside kicks(this seemed like an allignment issue in the fact that they were slanted so much to one side) and then all of the line drive punts that gave the kick teams little time to cover the kicks.
The second disappointment was that defense gave up a lot of rushinng yards over 300 to be exact. That and that a senior on defense had the late undisciplined hit that resulted in the 15 yards before the QB scored the TD.
I know the defense played a lot of football but they didn't even give up that much yardage to Gordon and Wisconsin. Two of those explosive runs up the middle the 78 yarder in particular seemed to be a combination of execution and allignment up front. We had our two defensive tackles tight, almost stacked, and the left defensive end was at normal depth and gap coverage. For some reason the right defensive end was in a really wide stance and had a huge coverage gap for the linebacker to cover.
On the one 78 yarder Celestin blitzed up in to the gap and once he was blocked up, there wasn't anyone else left on that side of the field to make a play. For some reason that one seemed to stick out as a possible mis-allignment of one of the defensive tackles or the ends on such a large gap, than you have a bad angle by Thompson again unless he was in the right gap and someone else was mis-alligned and it was off to the races. Without giving up those two explosive runs and looking gassed I though the defense for the most part played a good game against Missouri.

I have told a lot of people that the final score was indicative about how well the Gophers competed against Missouri, but a lot of fans especially the casual ones seem to be still peeved about the Gophers losing. Probably looks like they had more mistakes than they actually did at the end with the turnovers. Mitch played about as well as he had all year so that was a bright note.

 

[goldy93]

I have a hard time believing that Limegrover is the one deciding to sit on the ball at the end of a half. I would imagine that Kill says "let's sit on it", or "lets go for a TD" or "Let's go for a FG", and then limegrover calls plays using those directions.

It is a combination of down/distance/field position. If we had the ball on the Mizzou side of the field, I am sure there would be a different approach. It was a tight game at that point and if Mitch somehow threw a pick six, we would be hearing from everyone complaining how we should have held on to the ball.

 

[die hard gopher]

It is a combination of down/distance/field position. If we had the ball on the Mizzou side of the field, I am sure there would be a different approach. It was a tight game at that point and if Mitch somehow threw a pick six, we would be hearing from everyone complaining how we should have held on to the ball.

From the Scoggins interview, Kill said he was more worried about Mitch fumbling on a sack than throwing a pick. Not that your point is invalid.

 

[oleboy41]

Not going for it at the half with that much time and timeouts remaining is a huge huge fail.. milk toast and like being afraid of your own shadow. Lack of killer instinct because your afraid will always end up with mediocrity at best. Kill failed this one big tine!

Hindsight. If we didn't blow the onside and then went on to score and take the lead this is a non issue. I personally would have been more aggressive but its not some horrible, game costing call

 

[Killjoy]

Hindsight. If we didn't blow the onside and then went on to score and take the lead this is a non issue. I personally would have been more aggressive but its not some horrible, game costing call

+1 Exactly People are way overreacting to this. Both to the decision and the gravity of it.

 

[LongTimeGopher]

Quote Originally Posted by oleboy41 View Post

Hindsight. If we didn't blow the onside and then went on to score and take the lead this is a non issue. I personally would have been more aggressive but its not some horrible, game costing call
+1 Exactly People are way overreacting to this. Both to the decision and the gravity of it.

All season long posters were complaining about Mitch's inability to throw and not tuck the ball away. Now you wanted him to drop back and fire away. The chances of him getting stripped or picked (and maybe a pick six or scoop and score) were greater than him leading us down the field IMO. I agree totally with these 2 previous posts.

 

[bleedsmaroonandgold]

All season long posters were complaining about Mitch's inability to throw and not tuck the ball away. Now you wanted him to drop back and fire away. The chances of him getting stripped or picked (and maybe a pick six or scoop and score) were greater than him leading us down the field IMO. I agree totally with these 2 previous posts.

I had promised myself I was done arguing about this, but I take major issue with your assertion in bold. We were within 29 yards of Santoso range. There is no way that we are more likely to turn the ball over than we are to move the ball 29 yards in 50 seconds with 3 timeouts. We could even have run the ball a few times in that sequence (its not tough to imagine Missouri giving up a 10 yard run or two if they are running the one-minute defense), mixed in with a couple of passes, none of which would have required the ball to travel more than 10 yards. People defending the decision make it sounded like we wanted Leidner throwing the ball over the field all willy nilly, when I feel like we could have basically run our normal playbook except just not huddling in between plays.

 

[Governor Sibley]

Coach is stubborn, isn't he?

He knows he royally pissed off 12k travelling Gopher fans at the end of the half. It's bothering him a bit, I think.

 

[WHB Brewer]

I had promised myself I was done arguing about this, but I take major issue with your assertion in bold. We were within 29 yards of Santoso range. There is no way that we are more likely to turn the ball over than we are to move the ball 29 yards in 50 seconds with 3 timeouts. We could even have run the ball a few times in that sequence (its not tough to imagine Missouri giving up a 10 yard run or two if they are running the one-minute defense), mixed in with a couple of passes, none of which would have required the ball to travel more than 10 yards. People defending the decision make it sounded like we wanted Leidner throwing the ball over the field all willy nilly, when I feel like we could have basically run our normal playbook except just not huddling in between plays.

Let's not let facts get in the way of a good story. We were at the 25 yard line with 1:04 remaining. Assuming Santoso can "MAKE" a 52yd FG (he made one this year), we needed 40yds to be in range. They did try a run, got stuffed and MO called timeout. A few more runs & TOs or incompletes, now we have to punt.

 

[GophersInIowa]

Hindsight. If we didn't blow the onside and then went on to score and take the lead this is a non issue. I personally would have been more aggressive but its not some horrible, game costing call

I still think we should have taken a chance, but you're right. There are many things we can point our fingers at and what happened at the end of the first half had no influence over the onside in the 2nd. I've seen people try to connect the two for some reason.

 

[bleedsmaroonandgold]

Let's not let facts get in the way of a good story. We were at the 25 yard line with 1:04 remaining. Assuming Santoso can "MAKE" a 52yd FG (he made one this year), we needed 40yds to be in range. They did try a run, got stuffed and MO called timeout. A few more runs & TOs or incompletes, now we have to punt.

Speaking of facts, you left a few key ones out. You correctly pointed out that we were at the 25 yard line with 1:04 remaining. Then Cobb ran for two yards, got stuffed, and Missouri called a timeout (as you mentioned). At that point, we faced 2nd and 8 from the 27 with all three timeouts and 59 seconds on the clock. Then, we threw a pass for 9 yards and a first down. At that time, we were on the 36 yard line with over 50 seconds on the clock and all three timeouts. From the 36 yard line, using the 52 yard field goal that you referenced, we would need to get 29 yards to get to the 35 to kick the 52 yarder. So yes, my original point was correct, we needed 29 yards, with over 50 seconds on the clock and all three timeouts.