Kill Waits on Academic News
Jerry Kill’s busy to-do list as the Gophers' new football coach includes
aggressively monitoring the academics of his players. It’s no secret
some have lagged in classroom performance and Kill said during an
interview with Sports Headliners “the truth” comes out at the end
of May.
He receives daily updates on what’s going
on with his players and no one will be more interested in the academic
results when spring semester ends. “I think we’re working together to
do the best we can. …Trying to salvage some things,” he said.
Kill wouldn’t predict how many players
might become academically ineligible to play. “Hopefully we can save the
majority of them that were in difficult situations,” he said.
The Gophers have an already thin roster as
Kill prepares for the season opener at Southern California on September
3. But regardless of the depth impacted by academics later this spring,
Kill knows there’s a lot of future work to be done in recruiting better
players and students.
He has seven coaches on the road
recruiting, and looks forward to having high school players and
potential recruits on campus next month when they participate in camps. He and his assistants took
over the Gophers program too late last fall to put their mark on
recruiting.
“This past year (the 2011 recruiting
class) we really can’t take a whole lot of credit one way or the other,
except for about four, five, six kids” he said. “But going to this year,
it’s critical for us to have a good class.
“And we need to do a good job in the state
of Minnesota. We need to recruit to our culture. We need to
recruit the kids that are going to be successful here at the University
of Minnesota.”
Kill said it will take a lot more than one
class to improve a program that was 3-9 last season and has been
floundering for years. “If you’re going to turn around a program, you
can’t build it off mistakes,” he said. “You gotta do well.”
Other than Minnesota, Kill wouldn’t single
out states his recruiting will focus on, but the Midwest is the first
target. He and his assistants will rely a lot on relationships to help
them with players regardless of where they are from.
“We want to concentrate in the Midwest as
much as we can, and recruit kids that understand the weather conditions,
the school etc.,” he said. “And then what we can’t get here, you go
back to relationships, people you trust.”
