STrib article on Kill/Goph recruiting: Kill follows instincts, not ratings

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Nice article. This hire is looking more and more and more and more like a great hire! I keep getting the feeling he knows what he is doing. Like the DC said we have already been recruiting in Big Ten country for the last few years. That is encouraging.
 

Every shred of doubt passes into the ether...
 

BleedGopher said:
http://www.startribune.com/sports/p...DUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUvDEhiaE3miUsZ

Go Gophers!!
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Great article. I'm not sure that he's an instincts guy though. Unless his instincts are to work hard and to try to accurately evaluate kids. I like that he's smart and persuasive enough to bring in walk ons, then his ego allows him to admit that some of them should be rewarded with scholarships and are actually better than some players who were tendered. So far I really like this guy. I can't wait to be sitting in the LA Coliseum next September. Go Gophers!
 

Read the comments.

It's 1:43 a.m. in the morning and already 23 people have commented on this story at the Star Tribune. Also, can you believe Brewster never had ONE conversation with the Totino-Grace head football coach, one of the very best high school programs in Minnesota?
Finally, look what Kill did with walk-ons at NIU. Seven of his starters were walk-ons with one of them being his star running back.
 


Another thing...

This article says that Kill recruits players that will fit best into his system. How could Brewster have ever done that when he systems changed virtually every year?
 

LonelyIowaGopher said:
This article says that Kill recruits players that will fit best into his system. How could Brewster have ever done that when he systems changed virtually every year?
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We get it, Lonely. Brewster was a crappy coach. Get over it already. You are already becoming a pain in the ass here. Furthermore, most Holers are more interested in hearing your opinion about Mason. Now there was a guy who didn't recruit worth a damn. Mase was much worse than Brewster as a recruiter, and he HAD a system. The high school coaches in Minnesota despised Mason. He left Brewster with four straight years of what ultimately turned out to be the worst recruiting classes in the Big 10 (2004 - 2007). It is a miracle that Brewster got the Gophers into two bowl games during the four years he was here.
 

Walk-ons!!??

LonelyIowaGopher said:
It's 1:43 a.m. in the morning and already 23 people have commented on this story at the Star Tribune. Also, can you believe Brewster never had ONE conversation with the Totino-Grace head football coach, one of the very best high school programs in Minnesota?
Finally, look what Kill did with walk-ons at NIU. Seven of his starters were walk-ons with one of them being his star running back.
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Before reading that article, I didn't realize those NIU studs that ripped/tore/shredded the Gophers D were MAC walk-ons. That's something else! It speaks volumes about Coach Kill AND the state of the 2010 Defense. I'm hoping Kill/Claeys/Limegrover have some more of those miracles up theirs sleeves.

It will be fun to watch this team compete; hopefully the wins are coming! Great Hire, Joel!

Go Gophers!
 

It is nice to see that changes taking place in perception. Even the comments on the strib website are 90% positive. The naysayers are becoming less and less. Now I know they will be back once the team plays a stinker, but it really is hard to be a naysayer on Kill.
 




LonelyIowaGopher said:
It's 1:43 a.m. in the morning and already 23 people have commented on this story at the Star Tribune. Also, can you believe Brewster never had ONE conversation with the Totino-Grace head football coach, one of the very best high school programs in Minnesota?
Finally, look what Kill did with walk-ons at NIU. Seven of his starters were walk-ons with one of them being his star running back.
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That line blew me away too. Especially after all the hype about Brewster reaching out to the HS coaches. Granted, he mended a lot of fences after Mason, but that isn't setting the bar very high. This quote from the article also speaks volumes, both about the before & after...

"Coach Kill seems more like a real coach than a recruiter or a talker," said Devin Crawford-Tufts, a wideout from Edina and one of this year's top recruits. "Coach Brewster talked really big, but everything about Coach Kill seems more down to Earth. He seems like he really knows what he's doing."
 

Noeljenkego4...

I get it! You were a big Brewster fan. That has to be the rarest of rarities anywhere on this planet. I'll back off on Brewster once the articles in the Tribune, Pioneer Press and so forth stop pointing out failing after failing in his tenure versus the track record Kill brings to Minnesota. In the last few days we've learned:
1. Discipline among Brewter's recruits was questionable, at best. Many didn't/don't even show up for meetings on time.
2. There are many academic problems with Brewster recruits.
3. Kill beat Brewster with a MAC team that started seven walk-ons. His walk-on running back ran for over two hundred yards against Brewster's recruits.
4. Brewster lost to the Jackrabbits. How can anyone explain THAT?
5. Brewster TALKED about recruiting Minnesota players. But the head coach at Totino-Grace said today that Brewster never had ONE coversation with him in the nearly four years Brewster was in Minnesota.
6. Kill recruits to a proven system. Brewster could not because his systems changed every year. He went to two bowl games with Mason recruits. What if Brewster had come to Minnesota knowing what he wanted to do and had not changed co-ordinators and schemes at the drop of a hat? Is that my fault? Kill's? Mason's?
I'll address my concerns about Mason in another post. But remember, I said, it might end up that a series of massive screw-ups got us from Mason to Brewster to Kill.
I'm sorry I bother you so much. But you seem to be really, really sensitive about Brewster? Why, for God's sake?
 

There are a lot of encouraging quotes from this article, wow.
 




Mason was cheap rot-gut whiskey. Brewster was mid-July car trunk warm Blatz Light. Kill? I don't know yet, so I will settle for Jack Daniels on the rocks while I keep enjoying what is happening.

GO GOPHERS!!!!!
 

Dr.Don said:
Mason was cheap rot-gut whiskey. Brewster was mid-July car trunk warm Blatz Light. Kill? I don't know yet, so I will settle for Jack Daniels on the rocks while I keep enjoying what is happening.

GO GOPHERS!!!!!
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Kill to me is Summit EPA.
 

I'm not going to rag on Brewster or rag on Mason. Their weaknesses have been belabored to death here (and I have done my share of belaboring). The modern FBS program requires a, for lack of a better term, CEO at the helm. Suffice to say, whether it was lack of talent or interest, neither Brewster not Mason reached the threshold of what is necessary to build and maintain a top-tier system. Brewster was a ball of energy with no vision. Mason had an on-field plan, but had the coldest public persona I've seen in a major college coach.

Kill appears to know exactly who he is as a coach and what he needs to put together a solid program. He also seems to have the energy and personality that will create an interested fan base.

I'm very optimistic.
 

After reading this, I have no doubt that Kill sheds no tears when players like Jewhan Edwards quit school and walk away.
 

It is too bad the Gophers finally hired someone who appears to get it.
 

The ranking system is based on attributes and the potential to succeed for someone that has those skills, basically size, speed, quickness, etc.. There is no way that you can predict desire or how a person develops both physically and mentally over time.

There are going to be exceptions both ways but lets face it a team that can recruit all 5* is going to have better success over time than someone that recruits 3*. Occasionally the 3* are going to turn out better than the 5*, but over time that will not be the case. The key is to find the 3* that as a group over achieve. Not an easy task.
 

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