BleedGopher
Well-known member
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2008
- Messages
- 61,972
- Reaction score
- 18,166
- Points
- 113
per Sid:
Kill getting ready
The Gophers football team will start practice a month from now. Kill said there are a few serious injuries, but otherwise he expects the squad to be healthy.
“I think things are going well,” Kill said. “We’ve had a lot of injuries, as documented. I think probably some of our most critical situations — [redshirt senior center] Zach Mottla is a young man that broke his leg severely and will not be able to play this year, which is a sad thing for him.
“[Redshirt sophomore linebacker] Pete Westerhaus has been fighting off a situation, a health situation, here for quite a while. He is making strides but I think it is going to be a struggle for him to be in camp. Everybody else, we’re cautiously optimistic they’ll get into camp right now. We have a few question marks but I’m hoping we’ll have everybody ready by August 1, which is not very far away.”
Kill believes most of the players have worked hard during the offseason and that through recruiting, the team has upgraded its athletic ability.
“But we need to increase our strength in our [incoming freshman] class,” he said. “I think it’s a class that can run but physically they need to mature. They’re all young, even our junior college player that came in [linebacker De’Vondre Campbell] is a young guy. He’s got three years left.
“We just have a young football team right now, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be successful. I think the biggest concern I have is keeping our frontliners healthy and then develop some of that youth behind them. Hopefully we don’t have to use them too much, we’ll have to see. It’s always a concern.”
Kill said a big project for the team will be enticing walk-ons to join the team, knowing they might earn a scholarship in the future.
“We have a couple of guys on our team that we’re hoping things work out and we can help them out before we go and get another player,” he said. “The most recent example would be Jon Christenson, who has played center for us and done a good job. We’re going to take care of Jon before we go out and recruit another player.
“We have a couple of other young men we have to go out and do that with. We have a good pool of people in our program and we have to continue to build off of that. We have to do that in next year’s class. To get 25 or 30 kids in that class, we’re going to have to do a really good job with recruiting walk-on kids. But when those kids come visit our place and you treat them right and they see that you’ve scholarshiped about 12 or 13 kids since you’ve been here or 14 that have been in that position, that rumor travels.”
http://www.startribune.com/sports/gophers/215008101.html?page=all&prepage=1&c=y#continue
Go Gophers!!
Kill getting ready
The Gophers football team will start practice a month from now. Kill said there are a few serious injuries, but otherwise he expects the squad to be healthy.
“I think things are going well,” Kill said. “We’ve had a lot of injuries, as documented. I think probably some of our most critical situations — [redshirt senior center] Zach Mottla is a young man that broke his leg severely and will not be able to play this year, which is a sad thing for him.
“[Redshirt sophomore linebacker] Pete Westerhaus has been fighting off a situation, a health situation, here for quite a while. He is making strides but I think it is going to be a struggle for him to be in camp. Everybody else, we’re cautiously optimistic they’ll get into camp right now. We have a few question marks but I’m hoping we’ll have everybody ready by August 1, which is not very far away.”
Kill believes most of the players have worked hard during the offseason and that through recruiting, the team has upgraded its athletic ability.
“But we need to increase our strength in our [incoming freshman] class,” he said. “I think it’s a class that can run but physically they need to mature. They’re all young, even our junior college player that came in [linebacker De’Vondre Campbell] is a young guy. He’s got three years left.
“We just have a young football team right now, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be successful. I think the biggest concern I have is keeping our frontliners healthy and then develop some of that youth behind them. Hopefully we don’t have to use them too much, we’ll have to see. It’s always a concern.”
Kill said a big project for the team will be enticing walk-ons to join the team, knowing they might earn a scholarship in the future.
“We have a couple of guys on our team that we’re hoping things work out and we can help them out before we go and get another player,” he said. “The most recent example would be Jon Christenson, who has played center for us and done a good job. We’re going to take care of Jon before we go out and recruit another player.
“We have a couple of other young men we have to go out and do that with. We have a good pool of people in our program and we have to continue to build off of that. We have to do that in next year’s class. To get 25 or 30 kids in that class, we’re going to have to do a really good job with recruiting walk-on kids. But when those kids come visit our place and you treat them right and they see that you’ve scholarshiped about 12 or 13 kids since you’ve been here or 14 that have been in that position, that rumor travels.”
http://www.startribune.com/sports/gophers/215008101.html?page=all&prepage=1&c=y#continue
Go Gophers!!