Kill addresses previous comments on Fleck: "I said my piece and that was it. I moved on...I said what I said and move on in life."

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Got to have two, up-close interactions with Coach Kill.

First time was at the first open spring practice at TCF after the hire. TCF was a snowglobe for a late afternoon practice on a north-windy Friday. Coach was wearing shorts, an undershirt, and then a long sleeve t-shirt. Me and kiddo went down on the field for an autograph after practice. He was frozen. Literally shivering, his fingers barely working as he signed the program. But there he was meeting other fans, parents of players, on a cold day in April.

Second time was because we shared the same barber in Dinkytown. His appointment one day the summer after the Citrus Bowl was before mine and was running late. I respected his privacy and did not engage in fan-to-coach pleasantries until he was done. He was unassuming and appreciated my good words for what he was doing. Just another guy at the barbershop who happened to be a B1G head coach.

So I got to see him on a brief personal level at the start and at the end. On the football field it will always be "In Kill We Trust" for me. Off the field now is more mixed.

I'm glad he was our coach while here. I do think we're in a much better place now.
 

BilldGopher said:
Got to have two, up-close interactions with Coach Kill.

First time was at the first open spring practice at TCF after the hire. TCF was a snowglobe for a late afternoon practice on a north-windy Friday. Coach was wearing shorts, an undershirt, and then a long sleeve t-shirt. Me and kiddo went down on the field for an autograph after practice. He was frozen. Literally shivering, his fingers barely working as he signed the program. But there he was meeting other fans, parents of players, on a cold day in April.

Second time was because we shared the same barber in Dinkytown. His appointment one day the summer after the Citrus Bowl was before mine and was running late. I respected his privacy and did not engage in fan-to-coach pleasantries until he was done. He was unassuming and appreciated my good words for what he was doing. Just another guy at the barbershop who happened to be a B1G head coach.

So I got to see him on a brief personal level at the start and at the end. On the football field it will always be "In Kill We Trust" for me. Off the field now is more mixed.

I'm glad he was our coach while here. I do think we're in a much better place now.
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Your last 2 sentences sum it up perfectly. I wish he would have chosen the high road with Coach Fleck but he chose not to do so. In the end, the only one who loses out is himself because he chose to distance himself from the program by those statements and he missed out on a very fun year last year. He should have been right there in the middle of it, enjoying the big wins at the Bank because a lot of those kids that were playing in starring roles were his kids that he and Coach Claeys had brought in.
 
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Kill was at the barber shop?

I realize they do more than cut hair .... but ...

EDIT: Kill did have some hair left. I was thinking like Fleck.
 

BilldGopher said:
Got to have two, up-close interactions with Coach Kill.

First time was at the first open spring practice at TCF after the hire. TCF was a snowglobe for a late afternoon practice on a north-windy Friday. Coach was wearing shorts, an undershirt, and then a long sleeve t-shirt. Me and kiddo went down on the field for an autograph after practice. He was frozen. Literally shivering, his fingers barely working as he signed the program. But there he was meeting other fans, parents of players, on a cold day in April.

Second time was because we shared the same barber in Dinkytown. His appointment one day the summer after the Citrus Bowl was before mine and was running late. I respected his privacy and did not engage in fan-to-coach pleasantries until he was done. He was unassuming and appreciated my good words for what he was doing. Just another guy at the barbershop who happened to be a B1G head coach.

So I got to see him on a brief personal level at the start and at the end. On the football field it will always be "In Kill We Trust" for me. Off the field now is more mixed.

I'm glad he was our coach while here. I do think we're in a much better place now.
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As a famous former resident of Dinkytown would say, Jerry contains multitudes.
 


MRJ said:
Some folks on here laud him for bringing the program back to respectability and I can go with that. But honestly, that's all he did
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Kill also turned around the academic performance in a big way. Gopher football had been poor in academics for decades, which Kill fixed, and PJ has continued and improved.
 

BigTenGuy said:
Kill also turned around the academic performance in a big way. Gopher football had been poor in academics for decades, which Kill fixed, and PJ has continued and improved.
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Hageman for one was about to drop out as he was way behind in his academics. He owes Kill a mountain of gratitude for getting his life back on track.
 

BigTenGuy said:
Kill also turned around the academic performance in a big way. Gopher football had been poor in academics for decades, which Kill fixed, and PJ has continued and improved.
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I thought they were pretty good in the classroom under Brewster? Maybe I have that wrong...honestly can't remember.

Certainly the academic performance under Kill was strong. That's how they got into that bowl game in 2015 despite having a losing record for the season.
 

MRJ said:
I thought they were pretty good in the classroom under Brewster? Maybe I have that wrong...honestly can't remember.

Certainly the academic performance under Kill was strong. That's how they got into that bowl game in 2015 despite having a losing record for the season.
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Fell apart under Brewster. Horrible mess that Kill inherited.
 
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I think there was a short uptick on the academic side with Brewster before things bottomed out to where they were--in a bad place--when Kill took over.
 






A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
It would sure be disrespectful if Jerry noted how bad things were when he arrived... :O
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Oh, it's not disrespectful if it's the truth. For some reason, things just totally collapsed on Brewster; on the field and academically.
 



50PoundHead said:
Initially, yes. I think I pointed that out in an earlier post. But I believe things went down after an uptick post-Mason.
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I think the main thing that hurt the academic scores was that a lot of players were transferring/quitting for various reasons.
 

btowngopher said:
I think the main thing that hurt the academic scores was that a lot of players were transferring/quitting for various reasons.
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Could be. They did start shedding players through transfers. I'm old and my memory isn't as sharp as it used to be, but I seem to remember things fell apart a bit for Brewster on the academic front.
 

50PoundHead said:
Initially, yes. I think I pointed that out in an earlier post. But I believe things went down after an uptick post-Mason.
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Mason and Brewster APR Scores

SportSchoolStateAcademic YearMulti-Year RatePenaltiesPostseason
FootballUniversity of Minnesota, Twin CitiesMN2004-2005918
FootballUniversity of Minnesota, Twin CitiesMN2005-2006919
FootballUniversity of Minnesota, Twin CitiesMN2006-2007927
FootballUniversity of Minnesota, Twin CitiesMN2007-2008915Immediate Penalty - Scholarship Reduction = 3
FootballUniversity of Minnesota, Twin CitiesMN2008-2009934
FootballUniversity of Minnesota, Twin CitiesMN2009-2010935
FootballUniversity of Minnesota, Twin CitiesMN2010-2011932
 
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Was Mason letting players skip class? Actively encouraging them to fail tests?

I get that Kill and Fleck put more stress on that part of the "culture" ... but I don't get what Mason was doing that caused his numbers to be so much worse.
 

MplsGopher said:
Was Mason letting players skip class? Actively encouraging them to fail tests?

I get that Kill and Fleck put more stress on that part of the "culture" ... but I don't get what Mason was doing that caused his numbers to be so much worse.
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Prior to the introduction of the Academic Progress Rates (APR) by the NCAA in 2004, I doubt most college football coaches put much of an emphasis on academics beyond making sure their players passed their courses and stayed eligible.
 
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Cruze said:
Prior to the introduction of the Academic Progress Rates (APR) by the NCAA in 2004, I doubt most college football coaches put much of an emphasis on academics beyond making sure their players passed their courses and stayed eligible.
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What about a guy like Lloyd Carr at Michigan? I have no idea what his numbers were, but I assume he was such an "old school" type of guy.
 



Some guy likes how Jerry kill is talking in third person now
 

MplsGopher said:
Jeez. What the hell was Mason doing??
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It seems the "culture" Mason established for his teams was at least partly responsible for the APR penalty the Gopher football team received during Brewster's first year in 2007.
 

scools12 said:
There are many Kill fans who still think the football field should be named after him. Kill was a good coach who brought the U’s football program back to respectability. That’s it nothing more. He certainly isn't name the football field after worthy.

Kill has proven to be what many thought he was when he was here. Just another good college football coach with a huge ego.
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Kill is a good coach.
The third best coach the gophers have had since Holtz.
He is closer to being number 1 than number 4.....

but you don’t name a stadium for a guy that went 29-29 when the 3 years preceding his hire were 17-23.
 

Cruze said:
Mason and Brewster APR Scores

SportSchoolStateAcademic YearMulti-Year RatePenaltiesPostseason
FootballUniversity of Minnesota, Twin CitiesMN2004-2005918
FootballUniversity of Minnesota, Twin CitiesMN2005-2006919
FootballUniversity of Minnesota, Twin CitiesMN2006-2007927
FootballUniversity of Minnesota, Twin CitiesMN2007-2008915Immediate Penalty - Scholarship Reduction = 3
FootballUniversity of Minnesota, Twin CitiesMN2008-2009934
FootballUniversity of Minnesota, Twin CitiesMN2009-2010935
FootballUniversity of Minnesota, Twin CitiesMN2010-2011932
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Thanks for the correction.
 

Cruze said:
These are Lloyd Carr's only three APR scores at Michigan. It appears he put more "emphasis" on academics than Mason did.

FootballUniversity of MichiganMI2004-2005952
FootballUniversity of MichiganMI2005-2006958
FootballUniversity of MichiganMI2006-2007951
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Really unlikely to see a program like Michigan have bad academic numbers. They don’t have to take character risks to get great players.

part of brewsters biggest issue was many of his best recruits were risky. Some didn’t pan out.

Tramaine Brock still in nfl last I checked...couldn’t stay eligible...Hageman almost could stay was always the rumor
 

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