My Gopher fan manifesto

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EG#9 said:
Whoever that "somebody" is happens to be misinformed. The Gophers had 11 new starters on defense last year, and return 10 of those players. This is certainly not a less experienced team than the one that played South Dakota State last year.
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We did not play South Dakota State last year.
 

Jerry Kill seems like a great man (and by the way, whether you care to remember or not, dozens of people on GH thought Tim Brewster was a good man too, including myself. Just because Brewster was a rah rah salesman and talked extremely optimistically and confidently doesn't make him a bad guy or a blowhard. He was simply trying to change the culture and attitude around here. He failed, just like a lot of other men would've failed). Coach Kill has just suffered a difficult setback, the magnitude of which none of us know. We all wish Coach Kill a speedy and full recovery and a long and happy life. This goes without saying.

We all know coach Kill and his staff have turned around several programs. This fact indisputable. We all know coach Kill is a tireless worker and a very caring and passionate man (as was Coach Brewster. He worked from sun-up to sun-down and was very sympathetic and caring to sick children, former Gopher players and to people who were in difficult situations. I was privy to a few of these situations). Unfortunately, we've put Coach Kill and his staff on a pedestal, much like many people did with Brewster. I recall talking with Darrell Thompson 6 months after Brewster was hired. He and many others firmly believed Brewster was a recruiting genius and would dramatically turn this program around. Now, people are doing the same thing with Kill. If Kill fails, are you going to jump down his throat as so many of you have done with Brewster?

Having watched in their entirety the first two games under Kill and his staff, I'm truly underwhelmed with the "systems", some of the play-calling, and the coaching decisions made during the games. Some of these decisions are just mind-boggling. These are the decisions that separate winners from losers. We all know there have been some key dropped passes. Perhaps, had those balls been caught, the outcome would've been different. But that doesn't change the fact that Limegrover (or whoever is making these calls) is doing a poor job.

I said this in the Brewster regime and I will say it again. I'm confident that there are coaches out there at every level (from high school to small college to Division I) who could take these same players and plug them into a system that yielded much better results. For example, although I wouldn't have hired him either, I would bet that with Mike Leach as head coach the Gophers would not have lost to NMSU.

I will support Coach Kill through thick and thin, just like I did Brewster, Mason, Wacker, Holtz and Gutekunst. Why? Because I love the Gophers. But let's be honest with ourselves and everyone else: as far as systems, schemes, play calling and game decisions go, Kill and his staff have not demonstrated that they are special or out of the ordinary. In fact, they seem no better than any of the staffs Brewster put together (Note: Al Golden didn't seem to have any problem hiring Jedd Fisch, and their offense looked just fine against Maryland despite the loss). Honest to god, I really and truly hope that I'm wrong.
 

BreakTheGopherCurse said:
(Note: Al Golden didn't seem to have any problem hiring Jedd Fisch, and their offense looked just fine against Maryland despite the loss).
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Al Golden will have no problem firing Jedd Fisch either if his "fine looking offense" doesn't produce W's.
In addition, we'll have to wait and see how Harris performs in his sytem.
 

This is not about the coaches and systems. Some of you say we should just be able to line up against NMSU and beat them. The fact is we couldn't. That should tell you we are very short on talent, experience, and strength training. Talent - why can't our hyped LBs keep up with their RB coming out of the backfield? Why couldn't our lines dominate? Why couldn't our RBs run around/over their people? Why can't our DEs apply pressure? We don't have nearly the talent some on here think we do. Most of what we have is young. Strength Training - Coach Kill's strength coach has only had these kids for 9 months max. We have not had a reputable strength program for years. Mason wanted quicker, smaller linemen and we now know Brewster didn't really watch over any off-season (or in season) programs. Coach Kill said we were weak and slow when he arrived and dang if he wasn't right. It will take multiple years for us to have players as strong as the decent teams in the Big10 on a position by position basis. Experience - 10 of 11 returning on defense doesn't really state the facts. Our safeties didn't start. A CB didn't start and the other shifted from offense halfway through last year. With no pass rush and lack of experiece in the secondary we will get burned by just about any college QB. McKinley Boston said that NMSU KNEW they could throw the ball against us coming in.

Lastly, Coach Kill has to change the mental attitude of the team. When you haven't had a sniff of a Big 10 title for 50 years, it takes a long time to get all the players believing, knowing. and feeling they can win. Look how many posters upped their expectations last week after the USC game. It would have been better if USC actually cared in the second half and kicked our butts. Right now we are not a very good team. The fans need to be realistic. If the young kids we have develop and we get a stud RB, we could win acouple Big 10 games next year. But it will be 2013 before our linemen have a chance to be strong enough to really compete.
 

Gopher football is like the myth about forever rolling a boulder up a hill. It will always roll back over us at some point, it's just a question of how high we'll get it before that happens. I do believe that what Mason did is pretty close to the ceiling for this program. Beat the teams you're supposed to, choose one aspect to excel in and pull a few upsets. Every so often, have a year like 2003 and hope to not choke. All we can hope is that Kill gets us back to that level and finshes the job, at least one time.
 


BreakTheGopherCurse said:
Having watched in their entirety the first two games under Kill and his staff, I'm truly underwhelmed with the "systems", some of the play-calling, and the coaching decisions made during the games. Some of these decisions are just mind-boggling. These are the decisions that separate winners from losers. We all know there have been some key dropped passes. Perhaps, had those balls been caught, the outcome would've been different. But that doesn't change the fact that Limegrover (or whoever is making these calls) is doing a poor job.

I said this in the Brewster regime and I will say it again. I'm confident that there are coaches out there at every level (from high school to small college to Division I) who could take these same players and plug them into a system that yielded much better results. For example, although I wouldn't have hired him either, I would bet that with Mike Leach as head coach the Gophers would not have lost to NMSU.

I will support Coach Kill through thick and thin, just like I did Brewster, Mason, Wacker, Holtz and Gutekunst. Why? Because I love the Gophers. But let's be honest with ourselves and everyone else: as far as systems, schemes, play calling and game decisions go, Kill and his staff have not demonstrated that they are special or out of the ordinary. In fact, they seem no better than any of the staffs Brewster put together (Note: Al Golden didn't seem to have any problem hiring Jedd Fisch, and their offense looked just fine against Maryland despite the loss). Honest to god, I really and truly hope that I'm wrong.
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I admit to being a tad underwhelmed with some of the play-calling etc. as well. However, at least the unforced errors (false starts, delay of games, etc.) were down a lot in game 2. I also have little doubt that Northern Illinois would have smoked NSMU by 3 touchdowns or more (they won at Kansas on Saturday) so it's not as though Kill can't do it. He just needs time. All that said, we should never have lost that game on Saturday.
 

This thread is pretty depressing and it doesn't help that I still feel mentally beaten down by what happened on Saturday. Just a worse case scenario on so many levels.

I agree with howeda7 - we never should have lost that game on Saturday. At halftime, I felt it was only a matter of time that we would turn it around and win by two TDs and it just never happened. NIU would have smoked them with this staff - I have no doubt (even if I did question some of the coaching decisions in this game). It's just going to take time, I guess. Can't say we weren't warned!

I keep going back to Kill's mantra of - "We're building this on concrete, not sand." I hope that 5 years from now we can look back on these days as the lowest point in his tenure and be amazed at how far they have come. I mean, Gopher football has to turn around at some point, right?? Right???
 

howeda7 said:
I also have little doubt that Northern Illinois would have smoked NSMU by 3 touchdowns or more (they won at Kansas on Saturday) so it's not as though Kill can't do it
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Northern Illinois LOST to Kansas 45-42.....
 




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