The Gophers have won three games in a row and look to make it four straight this weekend against Purdue in a big Homecoming game! Gophers QB Mitch Leidner and head coach Jerry Kill spoke to reporters after practice. Here are answers to reporter questions.
Mitch Leidner:
Big ten championship, possible achievement?
Definitely. Just a goal that we’ve had going into the season. If you just look at the amount of hours we put in the offseason, we were right there, and we have the ability to do it, but it’s not going to happen unless we take each game at a time.
Mindset change from just winning a bowl game to possibly winning a title:
It’s just a totally different mindset. The first time we were here it was kind of like, if we’re playing Michigan, let’s try not to get blown out by a team like that. Each year that mindset just totally changes. It’s just night and day from when I first got here.
Coming off success and improving on it
Definitely, just keep building off that, and keep coming out here and having good practices and it’s just exciting, going into each game, knowing all the different play calls that we have the ability to call, and hopefully get to keep taking more and more shots as the game keeps going. Coach Z has been doing a great job with me and the rest of the quarterbacks, everyday at practice we keep improving and it’s really cool to see.
Coach Kill:
Mitch’s confidence:
The more confident your quarterback is, the better you’re going to play offensively. He’s getting better each week, and he’s just got to continue that process.
Jon Christenson, how he’s handled season.
He had a great day today. We played him at center today, back at home for a little bit. But I think it’s his best day since camp started. So it’s just a process, and from the leg he’s gotten a lot better. He’s developed some tendinitis in his knee. That takes some time and you’ve got to watch his reps, but today we played him at center because we needed to. But he moved around and looked as good as he has since camp started. I told him whatever he did, keep it up.
Kill also said that while Marcus Jones likely will not return kicks, but should play in Saturday’s game.