For obvious reasons, I don't normally link to Sid's columns, but I will on this rare occasion as he gives a rough timeline of how Jerry Kill was hired. Or at least how he believes Jerry Kill was hired. His source? AD Joel Maturi, who started this whole process over a month ago pronouncing a "Tubby Smith-like hire" only to say after it was all said and done he didn't really know what that meant and that he knew all along he couldn't get a current BCS head coach to come to Minnesota. Even though he said he could get one when he fired Brewster.
So if you believe Maturi, he says he indeed first spoke to Kill just a day before naming him the head coach. However, Maturi also claims that to start last week he was "95% sure" Kill was his coach and was already in contact with his agent. Which of course raises the question: if you knew to start last week that Jerry Kill was your guy...then why the hell did you wait almost six days to talk to him and hire him? Was he waiting until the MAC championship game was over, or did he have someone else in mind who said no? I lean to the latter explanation, but am glad we got Kill.
And the more we read about Maturi's thought process throughout (which could be compared to running around like a chicken with his head cut off asking anyone and everyone if they wanted to coach while spouting off cliches and making wild claims about getting a big-name head coach), the more I'm amazed we landed with as good a coach as Kill. It looks like most people (the sane ones anyhow) have come to realize Jerry Kill IS a good football coach, and he should be supported, but I hope people also realize we're very lucky to get him because with Maturi making decisions it could have been much, much worse...like hiring a career position coach with no head coaching or coordinator experience. Not that it's ever happened before.
Just when we thought we'd heard from just about everybody regarding the new head football coach, Shooter Now has Minnesota high school coaching legend Ron Stolski's opinion of Jerry Kill.
A couple of nuggets from E!SPN.com Big Ten blogger Adam Rittenberg: first, see if you can guess the one Gopher he has on his Big Ten all-freshmen team. He also takes a look at the USA Today's article on college football coaching salaries, and focuses on the Big Ten. He includes some ex, and future coaches, including Kill's salary at NIU, and Brew's before he got fired. Overall, as Rittenberg noted- I would LOVE to be Kirk Ferentz of Iowa. Over $3.7 million bucks a year? He's good, but is he THAT good?
Marcus Fuller highlights Mo Walker and some other Gopher hoops freshmen. The two wins in the last week kept the team in exactly the same place in this week's E!SPN's Top 25 Power Rankings.
Minnesota hoops fans won't like this, but Orono's Jon Leuer and Benilde St Margaret's Jordan Taylor are playing key roles for the arch rival Badgers this season.
John Shipley of the PP has some news and notes concering Golden Gopher hockey, including the importance for this team to score first. After being swept by Minnesota State(!), Gopher hockey gets some good news by landing 8 recruits for next year and beyond. Strib beatwriter Roman Augustoviz makes his weekly WCHA picks.
Future Gopher hockey Big Ten opponents Michigan and Michigan State are playing an outdoor hockey game this Saturday at the Big House. After its recent expansion, Michigan Stadium seats about 113,000 people, which would shatter the previous record for attendance at an outdoor game. Anyone know if Minnesota and Wisconsin are planning to play one of these, either at TCF Bank, Target Field, Lambeau or Camp Randall? That would be most awesome.