Who Does the Most With the Least? (Kill on the list along with Patterson, Petersen)

Donate To GopherHole

Per this article, does anyone care...

that in the recruiting arena, Kill's record ranks 109th out of 120 schools?

Kill has demonstrated at NIU etc that he can win consistently with modestly ranked recruits due apparently to out-coaching/developing and out-working his opponents.

At NIU, he surprised some B1G foes including Minny.

Interestingly, he has been quoted as saying that usually the team with the best players wins. If he believes that, at some point Kill's probably going to have to start attracting more "stars" to move up the B1G food chain.
 

The above mentioned coach's seem to have an eye for talent/work ethic/physical development/attitude needed to turn these low rated high school recruits to major college winners. Kill will not be in the top of the big 10 for recruiting at least for the next couple of years for sure but we can hope to see him coach these kids up and put them in positions where they can become a winning team in this conference. Texas basically gets to pick its recruits every year yet they struggled this past year as well as Florida, this will not last over the long term but 4 and 5 star recruits doesn't automatically mean you win.
 

SDGopherFan said:
The above mentioned coach's seem to have an eye for talent/work ethic/physical development/attitude needed to turn these low rated high school recruits to major college winners. Kill will not be in the top of the big 10 for recruiting at least for the next couple of years for sure but we can hope to see him coach these kids up and put them in positions where they can become a winning team in this conference. Texas basically gets to pick its recruits every year yet they struggled this past year as well as Florida, this will not last over the long term but 4 and 5 star recruits doesn't automatically mean you win.
Click to expand...

+1 The good news is that that coaches on this list can coach (IMHO). I h ave seen Ault, Calhoun and Kyle W's teams in person and they are well prepared. Ault's teams are especially impressive.
 

The simple fact is NIU is not a glamorous school to play at. As a result, any high ranking recruit is likely going to select his other choice over NIU. Therefore, I do not use Kill's recruiting ranking when he was at NIU as precursor on how he will do at the U. There is no question that the U has much nicer facilities and plays in one of the best national conferences. That two things alone are going to get Kill better recruits then he ever had access to at NIU.
 


NewEngland_Gold said:
that in the recruiting arena, Kill's record ranks 109th out of 120 schools?

Kill has demonstrated at NIU etc that he can win consistently with modestly ranked recruits due apparently to out-coaching/developing and out-working his opponents.

At NIU, he surprised some B1G foes including Minny.

Interestingly, he has been quoted as saying that usually the team with the best players wins. If he believes that, at some point Kill's probably going to have to start attracting more "stars" to move up the B1G food chain.
Click to expand...

Given that he only spent 3 years is FBS football and it was a low level (non-BCS) school what are your expectations for his recruiting ranking? Do you expect he should out recruit BCS schools? Also, once you get down to the players that all the low level D1 schools are fighting over how accurate do you think the "recruiting experts" are? I'd say they are pretty accurate for the top guys that the BCS schools go after, but do you really think they spend a lot of time assigning rankings to the guys that don't have BCS offers??? How accurate then are the rankings once you get to these teams? All I know is that the guys he had on NIU were better looking athletes that our guys last year.
 

GO4INLALALAND said:
The simple fact is NIU is not a glamorous school to play at. As a result, any high ranking recruit is likely going to select his other choice over NIU. Therefore, I do not use Kill's recruiting ranking when he was at NIU as precursor on how he will do at the U. There is no question that the U has much nicer facilities and plays in one of the best national conferences. That two things alone are going to get Kill better recruits then he ever had access to at NIU.
Click to expand...

Minnesota isn't tops either. Just by virtue of being in a more prominent conference Kill will have more ammunition on the recruiting trail. Once he proves he can win he'll recruit better and if he pulls a big season out of his hat he'll have even more cred on the recruiting trail.
 

sonnygarcia said:
Given that he only spent 3 years is FBS football and it was a low level (non-BCS) school what are your expectations for his recruiting ranking? Do you expect he should out recruit BCS schools? Also, once you get down to the players that all the low level D1 schools are fighting over how accurate do you think the "recruiting experts" are? I'd say they are pretty accurate for the top guys that the BCS schools go after, but do you really think they spend a lot of time assigning rankings to the guys that don't have BCS offers??? How accurate then are the rankings once you get to these teams? All I know is that the guys he had on NIU were better looking athletes that our guys last year.
Click to expand...

I wholeheartedly agree. Kill has stated his approach is to see the kid in person rather than rely on recruiting websites or just film. How many 4 star guys did Brewster bring in? They didn't look so hot against Kill's 120th ranked recruiting classes. Brewster was a great recruiter in the sense that he could convince kids we normally wouldn't have a shot at to consider us and sometimes sign with us. I enjoyed the recruiting, but man some of them have been gigantic flops. Then again it could have been coaching. Let's hope.
 

I hated it when Kill was hired. Hated it. Felt cheated and robbed. I don't know if he's the guy or not. But I know this much. I ripped Athlon sports last year when they dared to peg the Gophs as last in the Big Ten. They weren't right, but they weren't far off either. Had it not been for Horton getting something out of nothing, they would have been. This has been brought up before, but Athlon ranks Kill as the best hire in D1. They absolutely nailed it when they said NIU made the right hire with Kill and they think he'll win here.
 



The only concern I have is that with moderate recruiting classes, that this will be Glen Mason all over again. Which isn't a horrible thing--it means we will be competitive with everyone and go to bowl games, but will be lucky to legitimately compete for the Big 10 title once in 10 years. Mason did a good job developing mediocre talent (yes he had a few 4 stars too--Maroney comes to mind). But he didn't consistently win because he only had mediocre talent.
 

Can't win without talent, Kill will have to recruit. The bare minimum should be Brewster's results which were middle of the pack. We cannot go back to 9, 10, 11 (now the possibility of 12th) ranked recruiting classes. For the person who said look what Kill did against the high rated recruits of Brewster, I think that is a terrible argument for two reasons. First and foremost, Brewster's best kids were in their 2nd or 3rd year on campus, unless you get the truly elite players you cannot expect them to be the leaders of a successful team that quickly. Second, Brewster never proved he could be a head coach. He constantly changed schemes and never settled on an identity. A coach in the Big Ten needs to be able to both recruit talent and coach on the field. We've seen what happens when we recruit near the bottom of the conference and I can't believe anyone thinks it would be ok to go backwards in that area. This is my biggest concern with Kill. I have no interest in going backwards in the recruiting portion of the job.
 

The potential take sways from this is limitless.

1. Kill is a very poor recruiter.
2. Kill is a very good recruiter because he does a beter job of evaluating talent.
3. Kill is a lousy coach based on CBTN ranking.
4. Kill is great coach based on CBTN ranking and lousy recruiting.

My conclusion is that he's a darned good coach, but he best step up his recruiting to be really successful in the B10.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom