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UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCEOctober 6, 2015Jerry KillMinneapolis, Minnesota Q. What did you think of Purdue when you looked at the tape? Obviously it was an entertaining game they played the other day, but what did you see? COACH KILL: Well, I think it's a team that -- Michigan State is very good, and I think they played very physical against Michigan State and matched the physicalness of it, and then their offensive coordinator is very good at Purdue. I was talking to Coach Claeys before we came in here, and he's one of the better guys that preparation-wise, they gave us a lot of trouble a year ago, so they do some unique things and they're very difficult. But they're a team that's getting better, and you know, I mean, they were physical against Michigan State. They played very physical. I think it's a team that is very similar to what we were a couple years ago and trying to get better and improving, and I think they are. It's one of those things where you don't play Michigan State like that -- I mean, they were physical with Michigan State, and Michigan State is a physical team. Q. If you look at the track record you guys have the last 14, 15 years, everywhere you've gone has been improvement each year offensively, or scoring 35 points a game. How tough is this for you and Matt, maybe Jimmy, just what you're going through offensively right now? COACH KILL: It was tough on -- I mean, we all contribute. We all work together. We're a unique group, and it's -- you know, it's tough. I mean, it's not easy. I just got off the call from the Big Ten, and the guy from Nebraska called me and said, hey, can you explain all the injuries because we've got six guys out, and we're setting there with Jonah Percy is playing with a bruise on his shoulder, Joe Bjorklund left in the second quarter. It's more about how we're going to solve things right now, so that's -- that's coaching. I mean, we've been in there grinding and thinking, what do we need to do, how are we going to do it, so forth. But it's disappointing. I mean, we've all got pride, and we all want to be good. I've had those stages -- I've been defensive coordinator, offensive coordinator, recruiting -- I've done it all, so I've had some situations like this before. I mean, you know, I was on a team that we tied the worst team in the league 6-6 with a true freshman quarterback because a guy got hurt and we won the National Championship after that, so I mean, you've just got to keep grinding. We're certainly not going to give up or anything of that nature. I think we've got to find a way to get better, and that's -- personally, you know, I think it's a great challenge for us, and we've always been fairly good when our back is against the wall, I think, the first time. We had a good session in here with our kids. We were in here. Coach Kill sat right there, and I had all the offensive players and their coaches right there, and I went play by play by play. I'd do that with you but I wouldn't want to point out kids. But we're a couple players here and a couple players here, a couple players here. It's not just one person. We have breakdowns. We had somebody talk to me, I think son any said, coach, you ran it on 3rd down and 15 or whatever, and Rodney Smith, if one of our offensive linemen don't turn back, which he's supposed to be going up to safety doesn't turn back, Rodney Smith is out the door for six points. That's how close it is. But kids don't understand that until they see it as a whole group, and I held everybody accountable. It wasn't a yelling session. It was just, okay, what's your first step, you know, where are you going. Matt, do you have anything to add to it. Instead of going out and practicing, we spent all our time right here in this room, so that was different. So we're trying to do everything we can to get it fixed. Physically we may have to start two platoons, some of the offensive linemen, just say, hey, give us 30 plays. Never done that, either, but we may have to do that. Belichick does it a little bit up at New England. When you're beat up like that, you know -- we get John Christenson, I think he's going to play this week. He's going to try to practice today. That will help us. We moved the ball the first two series down the deal and then Joe Bjorklund went out with his knee. It's frustrating, but I think the kids are holding in there pretty good, and they're embarrassed, you know, they don't want to do that. Offensive line don't want to do that; nobody does. It's really hard on Matt because he's offensive coordinator and offensive line coach, so that's not an easy gig either in itself. We're just all going to have to put our heads together and get it worked out. Right now we've all stayed positive, and let's dig in here and go. So that's what we've done. Q. Do you typically watch film by position group, and was that -- COACH KILL: Everybody in the country does that because you can teach faster, move faster, things like that. But we decided to do it as a group. Not the first time I've done that, but first time with this group, and they needed to understand the big picture, you know. And then you don't point fingers because every one of them had a breakdown or two, and that's where it lies is the mental part of it, you know, and so that means you've still got to keep cutting, keep cutting what you do until you execute, you know, and if we're not executing, then we must be doing too much for the kids we have right now, so you've got to cut back. And then we've got to -- we've got to play to our strengths right now. I don't want to talk a lot about it, but we've got two great running backs. They're not good, they're really good for freshmen. KJ Maye is playing pretty darned good. We need to play to those guys' strength. We need to run the ball. We've got to get back to being who we are, and we've got to find a way to do it. We were throwing the ball 35 times a game. That isn't who we are. That's not who I am. That's not who we are. That's not how we're going to be able to win in the Big Ten. We won eight games last year, and I think Mitch was 10 for 15 against Northwestern. Q. How do you keep the confidence up on the team? Have they lost their confidence at all? COACH KILL: I'm sure some offensively, certainly. How do you get that back? You've got to go make a play or two. I mean, that's pretty -- when things aren't going your way, you treat -- it's kind of like life; when things aren't going your way, you've got to have something good happen before you get back on track in life. Same way in football. I mean, nothing is really going right right now. We need something good to happen. Well, you've got to go make something happen to feel good, and so we've got to have some success and have some things to get us rolling. But it's that -- we've got to get healthy, and that's an excuse. It is, but that would help us. But in the meantime, we can still do it with the players we have, but we have to maintain their confidence, and part of that you can't come in here and beat them up. I mean, they're beat up enough. They feel bad enough. I mean, our kids care. You think they want to hear everybody say, what happened and where they're at? But this is still early in the season now. We're 3-2 and we're 0-1, and we didn't play worth a darned against Illinois last year. This ain't the end of the world. And if you look at the Big Ten right now, teams are winning 13-10, 10-6. Offensively I don't know if there's a juggernaut in there right now. Iowa maybe, but they scored 10 points to win. I think right now it's just how are you going to win. How are we going to win? If it's 17-14, who cares? Don't turn the ball over. Don't be high-risk, things of that nature. I think that that's what we've got to get back into our kids. Like I said, those two backs in the first two drives, you know, that's how it should be. But you can't -- we've got 3rd down and 3 and we run a bootleg, and we need to -- instead of throwing it, just run the ball, get the 1st down, let's move on, so things of that nature. And when you get down there, Coach Kill, most of his career, all of it, you get past the 40 yard line, it's four down territory, certainly the way our defense is playing right now and certainly the way the wind was. So you ought to be able to get three yards, three yards, three yards, one yard the way I look at it. We just need to utilize some of the people better and get the ball to the play makers. That's our fault, not them. Q. What are the expectations for the quarterback position this year? How will you still meet them? COACH KILL: My expectation is win. Q. Coming into the season? COACH KILL: Win. That's what quarterbacks do. You've got to win. You've got do win or move the chains. That's our expectation. Q. Sounds like Mitch is available to the media today. Can you read into that that he's going to continue as your starter? COACH KILL: No, Mitch will meet with the media any time. He's not going to dodge any bullets. The one time he didn't, I think it was a tough situation for him, and we held him back. That wasn't even my decision. That was Paul's. He's going to answer to the media, and I'm not going to make any comments at quarterback. First of all, we make any comments, that affects -- nobody needs to know about that. Nobody needs to know what we're doing with the quarterback from week to week. We don't need to tell anybody what we're going to do. Right now we all -- I mean, Mitch, the whole group together has made a mistake here, here, and here. It's not one person. But we'll see how all that -- see how all that works out. We've got a ton of things to work out right now. Q. You definitely want to take the heat off of your players and all that. I'm just wondering from a coaching standpoint, like when we talked about how it looks like the team's lost confidence, did the coaches lose some confidence in that game? Because if you look at it as a whole, there weren't a lot of deep shots. There weren't a lot of no trick plays. You guys seemed pretty conservative in that game. COACH KILL: Just poor coaching. Poor coaching on my part. The wind is blowing 30 miles an hour, and they didn't take very many deep shots either. But that's poor coaching. I did a good job of coaching last year for the most part. We won eight games and did some things we've never done here before, and all that good things. But this is a new year, and right now I'm doing a poor job coaching. A lot of people feel that way. Right now they're right. But I'm not going to feel sorry for myself. I'm a competitor. I don't really care. I know I've got to do a better job. We need to do a better job. That's why I've been back in that room. Me and Coach Limegrover were up until midnight on Sunday. We take it serious. We've got to do better. We've got to do a better job of coaching. We've got to do a better job of getting players the right ball. We've got to do a better job in practice. We've got to get them feeling good. We've got to get our confidence back -- all the things that you mentioned. But that starts with the head football coach, and I'm in charge. I'm in charge of everybody. So I think the film session in here with everybody was a good session. So we need to get -- Coach Kill has got to get back to the way he's used to coaching too. You look when things aren't good, I know how I'm used to doing things, and I know why we haven't been doing them, but I need to get back to the way I'm used to coaching. That's don't hold nothing back and roll the dice a little bit. So that's all on me. It was a good question, but sometimes you have good articles and sometimes they're probably not very good. I don't know. I don't read them all the time. Some years you're the newspaper guy of the world, and one year your boss may not think you're very good. You're only as good as your last game in football. If you're not a football coach and don't understand that, you've got issues. There are just some years you can't control a lot of things. But as a coach -- to be honest with you, I'm in this situation, I don't want to be in it, but at the same time, sometimes people strive in trying to get things better and get things fixed. I've been more motivated this week than I've been motivated all year because I'm not happy, you're not happy, the fans aren't happy. Everybody's got a right not to be happy. I get it. So what am I going to do? I've had that back against the wall since I've been here on a lot of things. When you get your back against the wall, you feel sorry for yourself, or you can bow up and compete. We're going to bow up and compete. Done it all our lives. Our players reflect that too. I think the biggest disappointment I had -- and I told the kids -- I didn't think our teams were playing -- Saturday, Northwestern wanted it more than we did. That bothers me. You could tell that by sideline. I mean, they had all kinds of juice on that sideline. We had all kinds of juice at the TCU game, you know what I mean? All kinds of energy. And I didn't think that -- you know, in the Big Ten, there's little margin for error. You've got to play with some juice. It doesn't matter where you go and play. I didn't see that TCU high fiving each other, having fun, all that kind of stuff. So that bothers me. I felt that the turning point of the game was when they had the punt return, 10-0. Otherwise, you go in 3-0. You're going to have to beat them 14, whatever. Went in at halftime, came back out, and didn't play with emotion, didn't play as hard -- Coach Claeys will tell you didn't play as hard on defenses. That disappointed me. I called a time-out on defense, called Cody Poock over and said, Hey, get this stuff taken care of. Get it done. Compete. Help me out here. And we stopped them. Shouldn't have to use a time-out to do that. So that disappointed me. Again, that's -- but it's our job to get them where they need to be. It reminded me of the Illinois game, just to speak straight with you. Just reminded me of that. That should never happen when you're playing the 16th team in the country. And they're good. They've only given up three touchdowns all year. People go, oh, you know, Northwestern -- let me tell you, they're good up front. They hit us in the mouth. They play physical. They're really good on defense and don't turn the ball over. They beat us at our game. Q. Is this a better football team than your team Saturday? COACH KILL: Yeah, they were on Saturday. You're right. Straightforward. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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