Iceland12
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"Epilepsy is a powerful opponent. Medical people can help. Addiction is also powerful and it didn't take long for Kill to find out he had one:
Football coaching.
He tried to control it by being around the game.
First, he was a consultant for his friend Bill Snyder at Kansas State in 2016. Second, he went to Rutgers to serve as the offensive coordinator for head coach Chris Ash in 2017. He toughed it out through the season, then quit after the early recruiting period ended in December.
I talked with Kill on the drive home to Illinois' lake country a couple of days before Christmas that year. He was chipper and sounded like this was going to be it.
Since then, he has been an athletic director at Southern Illinois (2018-19), assistant to head coach Justin Fuente at Virginia Tech (2019), assistant to head coach Gary Patterson at TCU (2020-21), and interim TCU head coach for the final four games last season.
He was 2-2, with an immediate upset win over Baylor as a highlight, and blowout losses to Oklahoma State and Iowa State as a return to the harsh realities of head coaching.
Three days after the 48-14 loss to Iowa State, New Mexico State athletic director Mario Moccia announced that Kill would be the Aggies' new head coach.
Why, Country Jer, why?
"Mario was my athletic director at Southern Illinois,'' Kill said. "He wanted me. And I want to give it one more shot. If I can't do it, can't coach differently than in the past, if I can't keep delegating so it's not as hard on me physically, then I can't do it.''
Health? "I'm good,'' Kill said. "My weight's down. My blood pressure is good. I've only had two, three seizures — real little ones — in the last year.'.
Now, Gophers hard-cores are upset with him for some shots taken at the popular head coach P.J. Fleck, a former Kill assistant at Northern Illinois.
Revenge, if he feels the need, will be Fleck's, when Kill brings in New Mexico State as 37-point underdogs for the Gophers opener next Thursday.
Kill has a higher priority at the moment, that being Nevada, which opens the season on Saturday night at the Aggies stadium. Nevada has a new coach in Ken Wilson, a former Oregon assistant. A year ago, Nevada passed for 463 yards in a 55-28 blowout of the woeful Aggies.
This has to be the No. 1 rebuilding mountain to climb of your several, Coach Kill?
"We're starting at the bottom, so I would say so,'' he said. "Although Southern Illinois, that was a long way to look up, and the Gophers ... we were way down there in the Big Ten, too.''
Yes, but you don't have a conference at New Mexico State, and you're playing three money games as enormous underdogs — at Minnesota, Wisconsin and Missouri.
"I wouldn't be here if we weren't getting into Conference USA next season,'' Kill said. "I told Mario, 'One money game, that's our limit in the future.' "
Three, four times in this conversation, Kill said, "I haven't been the same since I left Minnesota.''
www.startribune.com
Football coaching.
He tried to control it by being around the game.
First, he was a consultant for his friend Bill Snyder at Kansas State in 2016. Second, he went to Rutgers to serve as the offensive coordinator for head coach Chris Ash in 2017. He toughed it out through the season, then quit after the early recruiting period ended in December.
I talked with Kill on the drive home to Illinois' lake country a couple of days before Christmas that year. He was chipper and sounded like this was going to be it.
Since then, he has been an athletic director at Southern Illinois (2018-19), assistant to head coach Justin Fuente at Virginia Tech (2019), assistant to head coach Gary Patterson at TCU (2020-21), and interim TCU head coach for the final four games last season.
He was 2-2, with an immediate upset win over Baylor as a highlight, and blowout losses to Oklahoma State and Iowa State as a return to the harsh realities of head coaching.
Three days after the 48-14 loss to Iowa State, New Mexico State athletic director Mario Moccia announced that Kill would be the Aggies' new head coach.
Why, Country Jer, why?
"Mario was my athletic director at Southern Illinois,'' Kill said. "He wanted me. And I want to give it one more shot. If I can't do it, can't coach differently than in the past, if I can't keep delegating so it's not as hard on me physically, then I can't do it.''
Health? "I'm good,'' Kill said. "My weight's down. My blood pressure is good. I've only had two, three seizures — real little ones — in the last year.'.
Now, Gophers hard-cores are upset with him for some shots taken at the popular head coach P.J. Fleck, a former Kill assistant at Northern Illinois.
Revenge, if he feels the need, will be Fleck's, when Kill brings in New Mexico State as 37-point underdogs for the Gophers opener next Thursday.
Kill has a higher priority at the moment, that being Nevada, which opens the season on Saturday night at the Aggies stadium. Nevada has a new coach in Ken Wilson, a former Oregon assistant. A year ago, Nevada passed for 463 yards in a 55-28 blowout of the woeful Aggies.
This has to be the No. 1 rebuilding mountain to climb of your several, Coach Kill?
"We're starting at the bottom, so I would say so,'' he said. "Although Southern Illinois, that was a long way to look up, and the Gophers ... we were way down there in the Big Ten, too.''
Yes, but you don't have a conference at New Mexico State, and you're playing three money games as enormous underdogs — at Minnesota, Wisconsin and Missouri.
"I wouldn't be here if we weren't getting into Conference USA next season,'' Kill said. "I told Mario, 'One money game, that's our limit in the future.' "
Three, four times in this conversation, Kill said, "I haven't been the same since I left Minnesota.''
Jerry Kill settles in at another football outpost as a visit to Minnesota looms
Seven years since he stepped away from the Gophers, and football, Jerry Kill is still coaching and in good health. His New Mexico State team visits Huntington Bank Stadium next week as 37-point underdogs.
www.startribune.com
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