As Jerry Kill took to his weekly media tour on Tuesday, the Golden Gopher head coach was upbeat despite a tough 20-7 defeat against Wisconsin last weekend. With the loss behind them, the Gophers will now look toward their final regular season game against the No. 11 Michigan State Spartans.
Looking Back
One of the bright spots from Saturday’s game against the Badgers was the play of Minnesota’s defense. The Gophers held Wisconsin to just 324 yards of offense on the day; well below their season average. Despite the strong performance for much of the game, Minnesota allowed James White to break a 49-yard on the Badgers’ first play from scrimmage.
“I think our defensive people, and Coach Claeys would tell you, I think we tackled well but we didn’t tackle well on the first play,” said Kill. “If you take away the first play, we had a good push. We missed three or four tackles and that was a big run. You take that away and it’s probably about 260 total yards in that game. I think we’re getting better. Our safeties really played well in the football game.”
Minnesota’s offensive performance was lackluster at best against Wisconsin. Quarterback Philip Nelson totaled just 83 passing yards but was hindered by a young group of receivers trying to fill the void left by the injured Derrick Engel.
“We had some balls dropped,” said Kill. “Probably the one that [Philip would] like to have back; we had Maxx (Williams) down the middle with about 11 minutes to go but [Philip] made some good decisions. He’s a competitive person and I’m sure we all want to do better but shoot I wanted to do better. We certainly didn’t want to turn the ball over but that had a lot to do with their defense.”
Young Receivers
With Engel out for the remainder of the season, the Gophers have turned to a number of talented receivers including true freshmen Donovahn Jones and Drew Wolitarsky. Although the youngsters struggled against a tough Wisconsin defense, the duo has continued to improve throughout the season.
“I think both have been put into the fire, so to speak, and it’s going to do nothing but get them better,” said Kill. “The older you get the better you get…I think Donovahn and Drew are going to be special players and I think they’ll do it sooner than later.”
What Kill likes about both players is that they already have great size for freshmen receivers.
“He’s 227 pounds right now,” said Kill of Wolitarsky. “People don’t realize that. That strength and size is what you want in the Big Ten. Donovahn Jones is probably 6-3, 205 [pounds]. I think they’re progression will be very fast.”
Kill knows that the Jones and Wolitarsky will keep getting better as they gain experience in practice and in games.
“Donovahn’s learning how to play the position because he played quarterback,” said Kill. “Drew’s a little bit farther along with his knowledge of the game. They’re both very talented…I’m a little bit greedy. I expected them to get to be sophomores here pretty quick, maybe over the next three or four weeks.”
Time Off
Following Saturday’s game against Michigan State, the Gophers will have a lengthy break until their bowl game in late December or early January. Kill and the Minnesota staff plan to go on the road to try and find future Gopher stars.
“Recruiting is a big piece of things,” said Kill. “We’ve got two weeks after the Michigan State game so we’ll all be on the road. That’s the critical piece of what we need to do. They’ve narrowed the calendar down of when you go into a dead period. We’ll be out every day plus some recruiting weekends.”
The players will have a different schedule as they hit the weights and focus on the final weeks of the semester.
“With our players, we turn that over to Coach Klein,” said Kill. “We’ve got to concentrate on our studies, academically. I think Coach Klein’s got them in strength because we’ve got to continue to add strength to our program so that’s what the kids will do…Next week will be weightlifting, getting stronger, getting healed up and recruiting is a big, big piece right now coming up in the next couple weeks.”
Murray Getting Looks
As the season has progressed, more and more media outlets and opposing teams have begun to take notice of sophomore cornerback Eric Murray. The Wisconsin native has even caught the eye of a number of NFL scouts that have watched the Gophers play.
“He’s gotten better as the year’s gone on too,” said Kill of Murray. “We’ve got a lot of general managers coming in to see Brock (Vereen) and Ra’Shede (Hageman) and every one of them goes, ‘Who’s that guy?’ He’s got length, he’s got strength, and he can really run…He’s going to continue to get better. We’re really looking forward to his progress.”