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BIG TEN CONFERENCE MEDIA DAYSJuly 28, 2011Jerry KillCHICAGO, ILLINOIS THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Minnesota head coach Jerry Kill. We'll take an opening statement and then go to questions. COACH KILL: Appreciate the opportunity to be here today. It's been a long journey for us coming in and taking the job in December. I feel like somebody was asking me today, Hey, coach, are you ready for the season? I say, I feel like I've already been through one. Anytime you go in and take a program over, there's a lot of things you have to do. I think we made some progress. I think probably the thing that's helped us the most is that I've had a coaching staff that's been with me a long time. I think I was talking to Andy, our sports information director, we were visiting a little bit. I think we're one of the top six in the country that's had a staff together for the longest period of time. I think when you take a new job over and you're going into a new place, having people that are familiar with what you're doing, it helps us get maybe started a little quicker. I've done this two or three different times. Of course now we're in the Big Ten trying to do it. We're excited about that. I think anytime you have transition, when you go through that period, right or wrong, it's a different way of doing things. We've come in and talked to our young people about this is what we'd like for you to do, what we expect. I think they've tried to do that through spring ball. I thought spring ball from day 1 to 15, I thought we got better this summer. We'll see. We start two-a-day camp like everybody else does. I know all coaches throughout the country feel great right now because we all have not lost any football games, and we're all undefeated. At the end of the day you can get into predictions, things of that nature, where you're at, so forth, but there's a lot of things you can't control in the game of football. That's why it makes it such a great game. None of us who is going to stay healthy, who has the depth, injuries and et cetera. We look forward to the challenge. We know we have one ahead of us. I think our kids are looking forward to it. The most important thing, I'm looking forward to being a ball coach, getting out on the field, being around the kids, because that's why you're in the profession. With that, I'll take on any questions and anything that I can answer. Q. When you announced that four men signed with you last month, you said you wanted more competition at quarterback. What competition are you expecting and what are you looking at going into the fall in that position? COACH KILL: I think right now going through spring ball, the guy that is no question without a doubt the most gifted athlete on our squad is MarQueis. As head coach, you look over the last few days in transitions, you have to have two quarterbacks that can play because you never know when somebody's going to get injured. We bring a little bit different style of offense so to speak to where we have run the quarterback in the past some. You worry about injuries, those kinds of things. I think right now we feel good about our number one quarterback. I think we need competition all the time. I think that's why the great teams are great because there is competition. We don't have as much depth right now so we need to find somebody that's going to push MarQueis and find out who that number two person is. Q. You talked about how special of an athlete MarQueis is. How valuable is he to this team and also do you expect maybe to use him as a wide receiver like you did the past two seasons? COACH KILL: MarQueis, we'll keep him at quarterback. I think that's the toughest thing. It's kind of scary. With Adam Weber being a quarterback, an outstanding quarterback, if MarQueis would have had a lot of quarterback reps, I think it would be scary where he's at right now because he's so athletically gifted. Our thing with MarQueis right now is we'll keep him at quarterback. That's what he wants to do. That's what we need him to do. I think our biggest concern is utilizing a young man, certainly in college football, I don't think people understand. I remember recruiting MarQueis out of high school. We weren't in it very long because we were at Northern Illinois and we weren't going to get him. But he throws the ball very well, much better than what people understand. I think our big key is how we are going to utilize his talents at quarterback. I think that will be the key of what we have to do during two-a-day camp to make sure we can keep him healthy but also be able to utilize his talents. Q. What do you hear from Coach Klein about how guys are developing physically over the summer? Can you talk about the importance of guys being in the best shape possible given this is your first year and you're opening at USC? COACH KILL: Well, I think the big thing is, you know, with Coach Klein, we actually live in the same complex together and so forth. I know if he's upset. We've been together for 17 years, I believe. I would know if things weren't going well, he'd be frustrated. I think he feels good about how things have gone and so forth. We'll know a lot more during two-a-day camp because I'll have the chance to evaluate and see how they've done. I think the biggest thing about summer conditioning, strength training, things of that nature, that helps you stay healthy. We have been fortunate where we have been and we've taken programs over. Maybe the number one problem at those programs has been health, not being able to stay healthy through a season. Certainly going through our schedule, playing in the Big Ten, that strength training is about staying healthy. We had our work cut out for us, like everybody did. We have to find a way to stay healthy. Coach Klein has done a great job of taking the kids we've had before and we've stayed pretty healthy and that's why we've been successful. I think to this point things have gone well, but we'll know a lot more when we get into two-a-day practice, and the pace we'd like to practice, if the young people can keep up, and if we stay healthy during camp. That was a concern during spring ball. We were beat up at receiver. I don't think we were where we needed to be. But in fairness to the kids, there was a long period of time for not knowing who the head coach was going to be. So they probably hadn't conditioned as well. We had some work to catch up. Q. You had some success at Northern Illinois against Big Ten members. How does that ease your transition to Minnesota? COACH KILL: Well, I think, again, it's a little bit different because you look at our conference, how difficult it is. University of Nebraska coming in. You have to play those games week in and week out. When you're at a mid-major, you may play two or three. That's a huge game when you play them. You're not playing that competition week in, week out, week in, week out. I think that's the difference. Certainly as coaches, we certainly understand that. As I've told people before, I can't worry about everybody else in the Big Ten. They are who they are. We have to take care of who we are. We have a lot of work to do. If we concentrate on what we need to do, then we'll have an opportunity to have some success. But we've got to take care of business on our part and worry about our team. Q. Are you concerned about the departure of leading rusher Estridge from last season? COACH KILL: I think in a situation like that, anytime you lose some depth at a position, you're always concerned. But we feel good, to be honest with you, at tailback. I feel very good about our position, where we're at at tailback right now. I'm more concerned about some other areas. At that position, I feel good about going into camp. I feel like we'll be in good shape there. Q. What are your thoughts on the new Big Ten schedule format, especially when you're in the Leaders Division, one of your big-time rivals Wisconsin, even though you have cross-division matchup? What are your thoughts on the schedule? COACH KILL: That's one thing I learned a long time ago, I don't control all those kind of things. Our schedule before we get to the Big Ten, we have some input in. I think that's important. Once we get into the Big Ten schedule, you're going to play who you're supposed to play. Again, I think that's the great thing. There's nobody on that schedule anywhere in the Big Ten. Whatever area that you're in, you're going to play somebody that's got a chance to beat you every week or you can beat them. I think that's the beauty of being in the Big Ten. Again, I don't worry so much about who we're going to play. I'm more concerned about how we're going to play. Q. I know you haven't played a game yet, but have you found rebuilding a program at the Big Ten level, the BCS level, to be different than at Southern Illinois? Is it more difficult? COACH KILL: Well, this is one, two, three, four, the fifth time we've had the opportunity to do it. It's pretty much all the same. I think if somebody came in from a business and they came in and evaluated something over six months, they would evaluate it the same way. Or if I walked into a business. I think there's certain things you want to do better and so forth. It's pretty much the same. All the things through my five or six months that I've been at the University of Minnesota are the same problems we had at the other places. Now we've got to fix 'em. That comes with I've got to be able to sell the vision to our program, our fans, athletic department, our president. This is where we're at, this is what we need to do, this is what we need to do to get there. All those things won't happen overnight. I have a vision. I've shared that with our athletic director, where we need to go. That's where I want to go. If we do those kind of things, we'll have a chance to be very successful in the Big Ten. But those are the things we need to do. Q. When it comes to recruiting student-athletes in the future, what type of athlete are you looking for specifically to adapt to your style of football? Is it a little bit faster than what Minnesota has had in the past, bigger? COACH KILL: I think it's more so what fits the state of Minnesota's profile. We've got to get a situation where we got to get a football team that reflects the state of Minnesota and also our university from an academic standpoint to an athletic standpoint. Then you talk about what we do. I think we're always into, through my past, we're always looking for speed. I think anybody out here says, Hey, you want to get players that can run and so forth. I think more importantly is you get players that fit the state of Minnesota, that want to be in the state of Minnesota, and understand what we're trying to do. So I think in the overall spectrum, I don't think we're any different than anybody else. If you wanted to say what you would want to look like, we'd like to look like we did at Northern Illinois. We had some athletic kids that could run, skilled, could make some plays, went to class. We had one of the highest APRs in the country. That's what we'd like to do at the University of Minnesota. You look at a guy I've known a long time, Gary Patterson, we grew up in the profession together at TCU, similar philosophy. You come from the coaching tree you come from. That's what we'd like to look like in the Big Ten. Q. This team struggled defensively through last year. Through spring ball, what have you seen improvement in? COACH KILL: I think we struggled on defense for a while. We always say, What's the answers, and those things. I can't speak on the past, I can only speak on the future of the thing. I think the number one thing as far as we're concerned on defense in the spring is we got to make sure we get people in the right places. We base out of a 4-3 defense. We'll do different things out of that particular defense. But I think that everywhere we've gone, I've had the same coordinator for many years, and we've been able to get better on defense fairly quickly. Most of it's because we've been able to get people in the right place. Usually when you look at defensive football, when big plays happen, you get somebody that's not doing what they're supposed to, you miss tackles, things of that nature. I think the big key for us is to make sure our people understand the defensive scheme we have in front of them. Are we going to be able to be exactly like we'd like to be right off the bat? Probably not. We don't want to ask kids to do something they can't do. The critical thing in coaching is to take the kids you have and make sure you give them the chance to be successful. I think that's what we have to do defensively. From practice 1 in spring ball to practice 15, there's a huge amount of difference. You have to buy into the team philosophy. It can't be about 'I,' and we live in an 'I' society sometimes. We have to understand it's team defense. Sometimes that happens quicker when the kids buy in quicker, sometimes it's slower. Hopefully through hard work during two-a-day camp, what we accomplished in the spring, we can play better defense. I will tell you this, is that you cannot win unless you play good defense, doesn't matter what level. You got to be able to play great defense and you got to be able to run the ball. I believe that with all my heart. Q. We heard a previous coach today entering his first year saying he doesn't want to watch last year's film, come into the present. Do you want to watch all of last year's games? Do you want to study that film? Is your approach to move into the future and not worry about last year? COACH KILL: I think each job and each program is different when you come in. As far as me coming to the University of Minnesota, we had played them so I knew quite a bit about it at the beginning and watched a lot of film anyway. Have I gone back and looked at some things? Yes. I've gone back through the history of the University of Minnesota, all the way back to the '60s. When we're doing what we're trying to do, I've talked to Coach Mason, Coach Brewster, Coach Holtz, we're going back, trying to get this in the right direction. To me, you have to go back to those people, to see where we're at, what we need to do. They're all a part of it. As I said all along, Coach Kill won't take Minnesota where we need to go, it's going to take a group of people. We have passionate fans and passionate people that want to see it go that way. We have looked at some of that stuff to see where we need to go. THE MODERATOR: Thanks very much. COACH KILL: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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