Gophers football and coaching staff continuity

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dpodoll68

dpodoll68

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What a nice, nice change in Gopher football, especially after years of a revolving door syndrome at the football offices.

Go Gophers!!
 

The continuity is awesome. Would be very interesting to know what if any offers some of these guys are getting from other places. The continuity is especially impressive if you have coaches that are in high demand, tough to say if that is the case at this point. I would think that Claeys for one has drawn outside interest but unless they come out with it publicly you really don't find out what jobs they may or may not have been offered or interviewed for. There are the coaching job sites but those tend to focus more on the head coaching and really high profile spots.
 

MNVCGUY said:
The continuity is awesome. Would be very interesting to know what if any offers some of these guys are getting from other places. The continuity is especially impressive if you have coaches that are in high demand, tough to say if that is the case at this point. I would think that Claeys for one has drawn outside interest but unless they come out with it publicly you really don't find out what jobs they may or may not have been offered or interviewed for. There are the coaching job sites but those tend to focus more on the head coaching and really high profile spots.
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Might be interesting to you, but don't know how that would help the Gophers.
 

mnsports1 said:
Might be interesting to you, but don't know how that would help the Gophers.
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Very true but it is a valid part of the continuity discussion because if you have guys that are turning down opportunities to advance up the coaching ladder at other places in order to stay in a position coach role with Kill that is impressive. If you have guys that are staying put because they are not getting other opportunities that would be viewed as an improvement over their current position then it is still a great thing to have the same staff year after year but it makes the continuity thing a little bit less impressive.
 


MNVCGUY said:
Very true but it is a valid part of the continuity discussion because if you have guys that are turning down opportunities to advance up the coaching ladder at other places in order to stay in a position coach role with Kill that is impressive. If you have guys that are staying put because they are not getting other opportunities that would be viewed as an improvement over their current position then it is still a great thing to have the same staff year after year but it makes the continuity thing a little bit less impressive.
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But if we are concerned with the Gophers getting better (evidence seems to say we are) and Jerry says that keeping the staff in tact is important to that, does that matter? It sounds like just trying to shoot holes in or trying to find fault with what Jerry says.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Very true but it is a valid part of the continuity discussion because if you have guys that are turning down opportunities to advance up the coaching ladder at other places in order to stay in a position coach role with Kill that is impressive. If you have guys that are staying put because they are not getting other opportunities that would be viewed as an improvement over their current position then it is still a great thing to have the same staff year after year but it makes the continuity thing a little bit less impressive.
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Most coaching moves are not opportunities to advance, rather to get different experiences. A lot of times, a coach leaves to either work for someone else or to get away from a situation they don't like.

The coaches at Minnesota appear to have no reason to leave. They are still able to learn and grow under Kill's system, and it appears he pays well.
 

mnsports1 said:
But if we are concerned with the Gophers getting better (evidence seems to say we are) and Jerry says that keeping the staff in tact is important to that, does that matter? It sounds like just trying to shoot holes in or trying to find fault with what Jerry says.
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That is not the case at all. Anytime you can keep a staff together the way they have it is a good thing because all the coaches are on the same page and pushing the same message to the kids. At the same time in coaching most position coaches want to be coordinators or head coaches at some point and the way you get there is by getting promotions and moving up the ladder. In the case of Kill with Claeys and Limegrover entrenched at coordinator that means if a guy wants to advance to the higher ranks he would need to leave. So the question then becomes are these guys getting those kind of offers and turning them down or are they still relative unknowns in the coaching world that know they have a very solid/stable situation with Kill and are content to stay put.

Obviously what Kill has in terms of staff stability is way better then the revolving door Brewster had but if you look around some of those guys that were on Brewster's staff have ended up in some pretty prominent positions so he was getting coaches that were in high demand. I can't really get a gauge for how in demand Kill's assistants are.
 

If this staff begins to have a string of 8 to 10 win seasons over a course of five years they will not be coaching unknowns anymore. If Kill could do that I would be a happy camper.
 



From Stewart Mandel's SI.com column (and no, this question wasn't from me)

Apparently, Minnesota and Northwestern are the only two teams in all of college football to keep their coaching staffs intact for four consecutive offseasons. Is this a good thing (continuity, familiarity with a system, steady recruiting) or a bad thing (turnover can energize a staff, change can bring in better coaches, players tune out coaching staffs after a while)?
-- Chris, Chicago

It's definitely a good thing, assuming a program is moving in the right direction. Minnesota has continually improved under Jerry Kill's staff, which has been together dating back to its time at Northern Illinois. Northwestern turned in a disappointing 5-7 campaign last year, but the Wildcats are generally trending upward under Pat Fitzgerald. It would take another down season for me to question whether Northwestern would actually benefit from a shakeup. For a model, look no further than Oregon's seamless transition from Chip Kelly to Mark Helfrich, helped in no small part by the fact that Helfrich managed to retain all but one assistant. And several of those coaches had worked in Eugene for multiple decades, a big reason why the Ducks have avoided even a brief down period in the 20 years since Rich Brooks' breakthrough Rose Bowl season in 1994.

The only possible counterargument I could see? If other schools aren't poaching a program's assistants, those assistants must not be particularly sought after. Stanford, for example, has thrived despite near-constant turnover of coordinators and position coaches since it began its run of four straight BCS bowls. That's because the level of respect for the Cardinal's staff is so high.

But not all assistants are looking for the next opportunity. Many are happy to remain loyal to their head coach. That's definitely true with Kill's and Fitzgerald's groups. All in all, though, the fact that the staffs at Minnesota and Northwestern have stayed together for so long is astounding, and something more recruits really need to pay attention to before signing with a school because of their attachment to a position coach.

Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/co...recruiting-oversigning-mailbag/#ixzz2t8uWhaXg
 

1. Kill's Assistants have a never ending love for him, due to the opportunities he provided for them.
2. Kill's Assistants have never been loved as Coaches, the way Kill loves them.
3. Kill and his Assistants preach dedication for the good of The TEAM.
4. The TEAM have nothing but love and dedication to Coach Kill and his Assistants.
5. Players that can't adapt to Coach Kill and his Assistants end up leaving.
6. Coach Kill and his Staff are putting together a new and higher expectation from fans, because they have new and higher expectations.

7. I support Coach Kill, his Staff, and our TEAM. I will die before I lose confidence with all of them.

8. The Good Dr.Don has completed his lecture for today.

Thank you for listening.

Doc.
 

Ok, I'll say it. Overwhelmingly, this continuity is a good thing, BUT....

Do a bunch of guys that hang out with each other for 10+ years have the right opportunities to bring in new, better, different, diverse thinking?

I assume there are plenty of opportunities for cross-pollination of ideas, philosophies and tactics between coaches during camps, conferences, networking, etc. Right? Would they ever pull a Tressel and bring in a "consultant" just to spice things up a bit? Have themselves scouted.
 

The coaches regularly spend time visiting other coaches trying to get ideas. Usually one or two members of the staff spend a week or two visiting other schools during the spring. Coach Kill has mentioned Auburn as one school he would like to visit.
 



I'm wondering if job security has something to do with it too. If I remember correctly, Coach Kill made a statement on how he should be fired if there is ever a need to fire an assistant.
 

I seem to recall back in the 1980's and earlier that when a school went looking for a new head coach, an important consideration was whether he could take his staff with him. Kill & Co. seem to be a throwback to those days. Today, it seems like schools are only concerned with landing the big name, free agent mercenaries with little regard for whether they bring along their current staff. I could be wrong but it looks like most new head coaches assemble most or all of their staff from scratch. Perhaps Kill & Co. are the model others will start to emulate?

Go Gophers!
 

BarnBoy said:
Ok, I'll say it. Overwhelmingly, this continuity is a good thing, BUT....

Do a bunch of guys that hang out with each other for 10+ years have the right opportunities to bring in new, better, different, diverse thinking?

I assume there are plenty of opportunities for cross-pollination of ideas, philosophies and tactics between coaches during camps, conferences, networking, etc. Right? Would they ever pull a Tressel and bring in a "consultant" just to spice things up a bit? Have themselves scouted.
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Kill "cross-pollinates" by he and his staff visiting other staffs on a regular basis. In fact, I hear he drives a lot of schools nuts by trying to set up visits almost constantly. Good for him.

Lastly, there's a difference between "new" and "innovative," or "new" and "different". If something works, why would you change it? So far, it's working. Lastly lastly, who's to say they haven't changed a few, if not many things over the years. Maybe that's why the staff sticks around...
 

highwayman said:
Lastly, there's a difference between "new" and "innovative," or "new" and "different". If something works, why would you change it? So far, it's working. Lastly lastly, who's to say they haven't changed a few, if not many things over the years. Maybe that's why the staff sticks around...
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One just has to look back to the Nebraska game last year to see this in action. Prior to that game, we had shown basically nothing as far as pre-snap motion. The coaching staff took a lesson from the 2012 B1G Title Game where Wisconsin embarrassed Nebraska using a similar gameplan. The staff has shown that they can completely change their gameplan in order to suit their opponent. Sometimes it has worked, sometimes it hasn't. But I don't think we need to be worried about this coaching staff being stuck in their ways too much.
 

highwayman said:
Kill "cross-pollinates" by he and his staff visiting other staffs on a regular basis. In fact, I hear he drives a lot of schools nuts by trying to set up visits almost constantly. Good for him.

Lastly, there's a difference between "new" and "innovative," or "new" and "different". If something works, why would you change it? So far, it's working. Lastly lastly, who's to say they haven't changed a few, if not many things over the years. Maybe that's why the staff sticks around...
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Thanks for the reply. Agree with what you've said.
I wasn't doubting the coaches, just trying to be a bit provocative.

What I like is our "wins per year." That's trending nicely. :)
 

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