Gophers Jerry Kill hopes to walk off TCF Bank Stadium 3-0 on Saturday afternoon.
With a 2-0 record, Jerry Kill took to his weekly media tour on the Big Ten conference call and local press conference. The main topic on Tuesday was the number of injuries that are plaguing the Gophers. Despite his ailing team, Kill and Minnesota are looking towards Saturday to improve on their perfect mark.
Injured Gophers
The biggest story of the day was the announcement of a season-ending injury to cornerback Briean Boddy-Calhoun.
“Boddy’s out,” said Kill succinctly. “He’s out for the year. He tore is ACL and MCL…Briean’s a critical injury because he’s probably playing at the highest level of any defensive back, except Brock Vereen, but as far as corner, he’s playing at a high level. He’s a great kid and it’s hard to see something like that happen but that’s part of the game, unfortunately. Positive part, we were talking, and he’ll get another year back, or should, and so he’ll get two more years but it’s certainly a blow.”
Running back Donnell Kirkwood has been improving with his ankle injury but is still an uncertainty for Saturday.
“The trainers have said that Donnell has done very well in his rehab…We’ll just have to see,” said Kill. “There’s a whole lot of difference, when you get an ankle (injury), whether you can run straight ahead or make a vertical cut. We’ll be smart how we handle that and we’re in a position to be smart right now because [Rodrick Williams and David Cobb] played well.”
Sophomore defensive end Alex Keith has a broken bone in his hand but could possibly play against Western Illinois.
“I think he’s got a broken bone in part of his hand,” said Kill. “It’s one of those things that you can play with. He won’t practice much today. He’s got to let it settle down a bit. He can play with a soft cast but he’s got to get used to doing that and that’s not always easy. It’s something he can play with but we’ll see how he reacts to it.”
Kill also noted that Nick Rallis will soon be back in a uniform.
“We need Nick Rallis back,” said Kill. “We lost 20 plays from a very productive player and hopefully we’ll get him back next week.”
Jones Honored
Marcus Jones was named Big Ten Co-Special Teams Player of the Week after his 65-yard punt return for a touchdown against New Mexico State. Kill was impressed with the way Jones has bounced back from two major knee surgeries.
“He’s a great kid, someone that I’m excited for coming off two ACL injuries,” said Kill. “He’s very explosive. I think he’s faster and got his speed back to where he was as a freshman, maybe even a little bit faster…I think he’s got a great year ahead of him.”
Gophers Running Wild
In the absence of Kirkwood against the Aggies, the duo of Rodrick Williams Jr. and David Cobb played well, totaling 178 rushing yards and two scores.
“They both played well,” Kill said. “Physically, that’s probably, since I’ve been here, the two backs seeing cuts, pushing the line of scrimmage, bringing the linebackers to them, making some runs…just running instinctively. It’s as good as we’ve done instinctively as a group of running backs.”
Although the running game was dominant against New Mexico State, Kill still saw plenty of areas for improvement heading into their third game of the year.
“We certainly were very productive running the football on Saturday,” said Kill. “I thought we executed on that side of the ball, running the football, much better than the week before. I thought we improved in our execution but there’s still a lot of work to be done yet and we’ll continue to work through it.”
Harbison to Return?
Wide receiver Jamel Harbison will be back in the lineup on Saturday, giving Minnesota an athletic threat on offense.
“He’s a physical player and he’s a playmaker,” Kill explained. “We’ve yet to see that on the field. He got hurt in the first game against UNLV [last season] but he’s got some physical strength and playmaking ability, but again, we’ve got to see that on game day.”