I appreciate a lot of what Kill did. He inherited an awful mess and created stability in a hurry. He also stayed out of the way of Claeys and let him create a tough, solid Defense by year 2 which is the main reason the team was better.
The awful offense was not so much a deal in year one and two, when the team needed to build up, not turn the ball over on offense, and lean on the defense to keep them in games. The offense became a huge problem later. and early on I had not idea if Kill was a HC that tended to be O or D focused. The obvious differences and improvement in the offense when Kill was not around suggested that Kill was heavily involved in the offense, and later that was confirmed Kill's area of focus.
I think we can all agree that leadership, organization, and creating stability were the keys to Kill's success. I think that Claeys has all of those things, other than Kill's homespun PR skills, and he may well have a much higher ceiling based upon what I have seen so far.
I think Kill's actions and words (directly and through his local backers) since he resigned to lend credence to what SF24 and others have posted. He has not done Tracy Claeys any favors by his conduct. I now completely dismiss all that "this is my last job" coachspeak as well and he would have out the door to Nebraska, KSU or anything he considered an upgrade the first time he won a Big Ten West title if the right offer emerged and he stayed healthy
I guess it does not really matter now though. The key is that when the season went in the crapper last year in Evanston, he decided to start showing up at work at 4 in the morning with Limegrover, stopped taking his medication, stopped working out and the rest was very predictable. It is easy to say it now, but instead of making a rash, emotional decision under duress, the guy should have kept very quiet on the Public side, backed up a few steps and quietly delegated almost everything to Claeys and Limegrover and let it all shake out before quitting.
