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UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 6, 2011

Jerry Kill

COACH KILL: I guess as far as an opening statement and those kind of things is that we got back Saturday night, came in Sunday and watched the film and did some teaching and practiced for a short game, and maybe we took care of some mistakes that were necessary to get taken care of.
And we put the game on Sunday -- after Sunday night we put it behind us and we moved on, and you know, we'll get a practice today. It'll be interesting with the first day of practice and school, and I told our coaches that we need to approach this week like we're playing the Super Bowl. That's the way I feel about it. We need to get the bad taste out of our mouth, and we need to get a lot better, because we have a lot of work to do and a lot of room for improvement. So that's where we left it, so at this time I'll take any questions that you'd like to ask.

Q. (No microphone).
COACH KILL: Well, I think the biggest thing we accomplished is that we kind of know where we're at playing USC because they've got a very talented group of young people, and you know, I think we found out some things about our kids playing in that situation, playing against some very good people, and we found out about some personnel issues. I think we found out that we're not as disciplined as we need to be. I think we found out the head coach has gotta make sure that he gets his football team ready to play in the first half, and I thought we were starry eyed, lethargic, whatever you want to say. We weren't very sharp or crisp.
But the positive thing is from the first quarter to the second quarter to the third quarter, the fourth quarter we got better as we played. And I said we gotta get better every day, and I think we got better every quarter.
And when we went in at halftime, I talked to the kids out on the field and told them that I did not want to play the way we were playing, and I expected us to do better than that and had a little heart to heart, and we went in and made some adjustments.
Our coaches did a good job. Our kids could have went either direction, and I thought they went a positive direction. That's not a credit to the coaches. That's a credit to the kids because they're the ones that are playing, and they reached down there and grabbed something and they bought in, and I think our coaches certainly did a good job of keeping their composure, but the kids responded, and I thought they played -- maybe we didn't play technically well all the time the second half, but they did play hard.
And I wish we had four or five more minutes in that football game, but we didn't. And I think we were stronger than USC at the end of the game. You know, I think they got tired, and I think our kids gained some momentum. We just -- we didn't execute down the stretch.

Q. In retrospect, what would you have done differently to get your players ready to play better?
COACH KILL: I don't know, but I'm going to work on it. I think that first game going to USC on the road, travel, all that, I'll take a good long look at what we do if we go to the West Coast and all the little increment things you have to do.
I'll spend some time -- I thought we did a good job, but maybe it's part of being a young team, new coach, I don't know. But we didn't communicate very well.
I think that offensively it was tough. We had headset problems, and they were going in and out, and trying to communicate, and I think -- I don't make excuses at all. We still gotta get it done, but we just weren't real crisp, and I really believe part of it was you went to USC, and I think some of those kids for the first time haven't been in that situation, so I think there's some anxiety. I think there was wanting to do really good, and sometimes you get out there and you're processing things, and I think offensively we processed a lot, and I think defensively early in the game we made some mental errors that I don't think our kids would normally make, but they did.
That's not the kids' fault. Maybe we asked them to do too much too early, I don't know. But we'll certainly go back to work and see what we need to get cleaned up, and I think we got a good idea, and we're going to work hard today. I can tell you that.

Q. (No microphone).
COACH KILL: No. I don't think so. We're not going to change anything we've done. I mean it's a situation where, you know, Marqueis went out and Max came in and did well, and I think that's a great thing for us because we'd like to be aggressive with our quarterback and what we do, and now we know that we've got two kids that are capable of playing, so that's a good situation to be in, and I'm not worried about that near as much as I'm worried about some other things. So we've gotta do a better job blocking. We gotta do a better job of getting in and out of the huddle. Having penalties and all that kind of stuff I don't like, so those are things we need to get locked down. And that's one game. So we'll see how we approach the next game just like we did this one and hopefully we'll play better and improve from the first game.

Q. How do you think Marqueis did, sort of handling his first start in that environment as well as handling not being able to play down the stretch when he was hurt?
COACH KILL: Well, I think he'd be the first one to tell you that he hadn't played quarterback in four years and he went out there and I think he's just like anybody, whether it's me or you, and you get up underneath the center and you're playing USC and you see zone dogs, man dogs, twists, stunts, eight-man box, nine-man box, zone blitz. You see it all. I think he was processing quite a bit early.
And then again, as the game went on, things slowed down for him a little bit and he started to do some things in the third quarter and then he cramped up.
And we may have done too much with him as a coaching staff. That's something we have to look at, and I think on both, I think the coaches, Marqueis, Max, we all gotta come together to keep working to see where we go from here. But I think both those kids had some great moments and both of them had some tough moments and they'll both tell you that from watching the film, but we just gotta get better.
They will. They both work their tail end off and our coaches got a lot of pride, so we'll work hard and get better.

Q. (No microphone).
COACH KILL: Well, you know, I don't know if I -- it's like any job you do, you're locked into what you do. And I didn't know any more what we had than what you all knew. So hey, gotta throw him in there. Wasn't like we had a lot of choice. So we threw him in there.
But Max is -- if you come to practice I'm a pretty relentless guy and it's not like Max wasn't prepared to play and had a butt chewing or two, so he's probably glad to get on the field and get away from me. So he did a nice job and went in there and was pretty composed, and let's give credit to his high school coach where he's from there in Kansas City. And he's played quarterback. He's been playing quarterback much, so in some ways it was maybe easier for him than Marqueis because Marqueis had been playing receiver. So I think both of them had a lot to learn. There's a couple things Max would have done different, certainly down the stretch. But that's how you learn. We learned playing USC. They got some players. I don't think there's any question about that.

Q. (No microphone).
COACH KILL: A loss. Either win or lose, every day. You know.

Q. Defensively (no microphone).
COACH KILL: It was -- we probably tackled -- you know, I thought we tackled pretty solid. They had a couple long runs where we had our head down and the guy made a move and we didn't make a very good tackle. But I think they only rushed for 60 or 70 yards and USC is pretty good at running the football. They're a good football team. But I thought we tackled solid. I thought we got in the right gaps most of the time.
You know, again, playing first game you don't know what they're going to do for sure, so there's a few things they did that we had to get things adjusted in the second half. And their receivers, shoot, I think he'll play in the League some day. He's awful good.
And you know, they presented some challenges. I think we had a mental breakdown in the secondary, which that part hurts a little bit. But you know, I don't think we'll have it again, and so we'll just keep working. But I thought overall, you know, defensively, certainly in the second half they rose to the challenge. They didn't quit. They played hard and chased the ball. I thought we chased the ball pretty good. That was encouraging.

Q. (No microphone).
COACH KILL: Well, I think the advantage of -- I've told everybody all along is that, you know, I'm only as good as the people around me, and I've got good people around me and we've been together a long time. And basically what we try to do is, you know, most of the teams go in at halftime. You gotta wait on the other team going into the same tunnel. So we call our guys together. I got what we needed to say as a head coach to them. By that time our coaches knew what we needed to get done. We didn't want to waste a lot of time, got them in the locker room and said, okay, these are things we gotta get done. We're getting hurt in this situation. We gotta do this more. We're going to have to slant the defensive line.
We got Lamonte Edwards there late in the game. We have had a running back we wanted to get a little more pressure on the passer, so we got Lamonte involved in the pass rush. We worked on that on Thursday. So we're just trying to find a way to win a game, put pressure on the quarterback, et cetera.
But I think the thing, for whatever reason we've been gifted -- where we've been in the past we've always been a pretty good second half team, and we've been able to make some adjustments and so forth. But hopefully we'll continue to do that. But a lot of that credit goes to our coaching staff. I wouldn't give myself credit for that. I just think I'm surrounded by some guys that we kind of know each other and we know what to do and we know what our weaknesses and strengths are.

Q. Do you feel like that was in response to something they had seen in the defense?
COACH KILL: Well, I think it's like anything. I'd rather keep the ball in front of us than have it back behind us. And you know, we were concerned about them going over the top, so they took what they give us. That's what a good quarterback does. They did a great job in the three-step game. They do a great job in the run game. We want to stop the runs, so we keep up there and get eight or nine blocks and you either don't get up there and play press man or get beat on the top. I thought we did a better job in the second half. We mixed it up where we just wouldn't give it to them all the time. Made them throw the fade and so forth.
Again, we're trying to do what we can do with the kids we have. And we're trying to keep the ball in front of us, and sometimes you go, man, they're moving the ball, they're moving the ball, and as long as they don't score or you hold them to a field goal, that's what you're trying to do. I think one of the adjustments that we talked about is that we just can't set off of them nine yards deep and let them throw the quick stuff all the time. So we started mixing up things a little bit and we'd wait till they come to the line of scrimmage and Coach Sawvel was doing a good job with Troy. He pressed a lot more, Vereen pressed a lot more. We'd back one off. We gave him some different looks to where he just couldn't settle in there and do it. Probably should have done it earlier, but a little bit scared of that ball going over the top and getting easy scores. So you know, again, you're learning about your team and what we can and what we can't do.

Q. Did you see Edwards playing (no microphone).
COACH KILL: First of all, we need to get him the darn ball on offense a little bit. But he'll play running back. But we'll do what we have to do to win, now. We're in a situation where we're going to use the speed -- like I told our coaches, he's not doing me any -- he did a great job on kickoff. He did a great job on punt. I said we can't have the guys that can run fast sitting over there next to me on game day very much. So if we can use him in some pass rushing situations, we're going to.
I hate to give all our secrets out, but we're going to do what we have to do to be successful here in the first year, and if we have to do some things a little bit unique with a player or two, spend a little extra time in practice, that's what we'll try to do. But we'll see how it goes as we go on.

Q. (No microphone).
COACH KILL: We'll see.

Q. (No microphone).
COACH KILL: I'm not going to get into all that right now. We're asking -- we're asking a kid that's moved from receiver to quarterback. I'm not saying we won't sometimes. I'm not going to lie anybody. We might.
I don't want to give everything we're going to do away, but right now we need to get him focused, get comfortable on playing quarterback. And like I said, you're taking a youngster that -- we're asking a whole lot out of that kid. We really are. But he'll be fine. We just gotta do a better job. We gotta do a better job of coaching.

Q. Does it benefit him at all like you did last year to give the quarterback some time (no microphone)?
COACH KILL: I think so. I think we'll be a little more aggressive with the talents he has and we got somebody that can relieve him if he gets cramped up or anything of that nature. He certainly feels more comfortable about being more aggressive, because the other kid can give him a break, and I'm not afraid to do that.
And certainly that helps us after seeing USC, you know, playing them and Max being able to come in. And we do it at practice. You have to prepare -- you don't like preparing for the worst, but you have to. And the positive thing we did, if we did anything right since I've been here, and I've done a lot of things probably wrong, but we've trained -- we've prepped two huddling and we've prepped two deep all this time and some were three deep, and so Max had a lot of preps, as well as the defensive line.
I think we played 10 guys on Saturday, 10 or 11 guys. And we're going to get beat up. We're not as big and physical as some people we're playing right now. We certainly weren't as big and physical as USC was. But I think by playing a lot of bodies we were able to hang in there a little bit. And played fresh kids and they played hard. So hopefully we'll continue to do that.

Q. (No microphone) how do you feel about the pass rush in that game?
COACH KILL: Well, I think, you know, it's hard -- you're not going to sack a guy in three-set drop. It's hard to. But we put pressure on them. I think just like anything we like to have the sacks. Bauducco had him sacked one time and he got out around him, but he at least forced a bad throw. We had some pressure. It wasn't like he -- he went the quick five and deeper drops we were able to do. Where he hurt us was on the negative boot leg and three-step drop. He's a good player. Those guys have been coaching a long time, and everybody knows who Monte Kiffin is in this room, and I talked to him before the game and after the game, and you know, they're well coached. It is what it is.

Q. (No microphone) six days from New Mexico?
COACH KILL: I don't think you'll see an easy off. We had a unique practice on Sunday. So you can't sit around and go it was nice playing USC close. We got beat. I let them know we got beat and I let them know why we got beat, and we took care of it on Sunday. So we better not have a letdown today. There will be some tired coaches and tired players.

Q. How disappointing was the (no microphone)?
COACH KILL: Well, I mean life is about disappointment and successes and we didn't execute it, so it wasn't the happiest thing in the world. I thought we punted the ball well. I think that was a big question of ours coming in. I thought we punted the ball well. That was a positive, and our net punt was good. And our kickoff return guy was pretty good, and I think their average start was 27 and ours was 37. So we won that part of it.
But the field goal thing, one was pressure and a lot of times you don't realize that, but one of them got blocked, and the second one had a lot of pressure. So we gotta get it fixed, and again, that's my job, and I'm disappointed in the way it was executed, and my job is to get it fixed as a head coach, but I'm not going to throw the kids under the bus. We just gotta do better. We gotta execute it better because we're going to be -- you know, you get where you want to in the fourth quarter and you play close quarters. You gotta win by a field goal, you gotta win by those things, and that's how we're going to have to win. So we just need to work on it and get it fixed.

Q. (No microphone).
COACH KILL: Well, I'm excited about today. I'm excited about going out there and getting the bad taste out of my mouth and see if we can get better. I'm excited about being here at home. The biggest things I'll tell you is our fans were awesome out at USC. We're in the fourth quarter and having a chance to win and our crowd in the corner was as loud as their crowd. We had a great following, and it's going to be great to be here at home, and our players -- we need to see if we're going to improve. There's nothing worse than inconsistency in life, and I'm going to see if we're mature enough or whatever and we're going to improve or we're going to have a setback or what our mentality is.
I always say 75, 80 percent maybe 90 percent of life is above your shoulders and we'll see where our head is today. I'm looking forward to it. I know that. And shoot, I wish we could go out and play on Thursday, but we can't and we won't be ready to because we got too much to fix.

Q. (No microphone).
COACH KILL: You know, I don't know. That's a good question. Like I said, I'm always going to tell you the truth. I met with our trainer this morning, and he's got a lot of swelling in the back of his knee, and you know, it's not going to be a one-week thing. I think we'll know as he gets the swelling out of his knee and continues to work with the doctors where we're at on all that kind of thing. Is it a month? I wish I knew, but I don't.
And he's a great kid. I feel bad for him. Tough luck, and so forth, but as I told him, life's about adversity, and stay positive, and he's rehabbing and doing everything he can and we'll see what happens, but I'm certainly rooting for the kid because you don't want to see that happen to anybody.

Q. Do you know if it's the same knee that he injured before?
COACH KILL: It is. It is.

Q. Keep cracking down on Marqueis or any other player. (No microphone).
COACH KILL: You know, I think it's one of those things that as far as our team doctor and trainers and stuff said this is the first time they had something. And we drink a lot of -- tons of water. We let them carry water to every meeting. We talk to them about what they eat and all those kind of things.
In his situation, you know, if you've been out to practice, we have to take extra jerseys and everything else for him because he sweats a ton. And I just think, you know, I think anxiety has a little bit to do with it. I think his first game, first start at quarterback. I mean you got -- there's a lot of things that go into those cramps and stuff like that. So hopefully, you know, we took him in and IV'd him and brought him back out, but as a starting quarterback or playing quarterback, when your arms are cramping, I didn't want him to drop the ball or anything of that nature and didn't want to put him in that situation.
But hopefully we'll -- we just keep pouring water down him and do what we can. That's something -- I don't know what his past has been with that, but I think anxiety probably has a little bit to do with that, too.

Q. Will it keep him from starting the game (no microphone)?
COACH KILL: What do you mean as far as --

Q. (No microphone).
COACH KILL: What, for cramping up? No. No. I mean that's just -- I mean that's -- there's no -- he's going to practice full speed today and he'll be good to go. I mean the only thing with cramping that you have to be scared about is that sometimes where you pull a hamstring or something like that. I mean you're going full speed and you cramp up. You see that quite a bit. But you'll see that early. I mean I don't -- I mean it's not uncommon. I've had running backs, quarterbacks, receivers, I mean it happens, you know. Sometimes where they don't drink enough water maybe during the game or something and they're competing and they forget. You know, sometimes I do the same thing, you know. They're always on me about drinking water. You know, you get going, you don't think about all that. You're focused in on what you're supposed to do.

Q. (No microphone).
COACH KILL: Well, you know, feel free to -- Monte's -- I really didn't know Monte all that well, but after I got the job, I was recruiting, he was down in Florida, and he stopped me and he said, hey, coach, I'm going to tell you, he said I've watched every game with Northern Illinois. He said I was at your bowl game at Northern Illinois, and he said, I just want you to know I've never seen... and before the game he came up to me and said, he kind of just shared about the respect he had for his staff and the way the kids played and special teams, et cetera. And then he was very complimentary of the game.
It makes you feel good, I'll tell you that, because he's been in this game a long time, and I think he's one of the best defensive football coaches. You know, I mean he's up there with the best of them. So it means something to you when he says something.

Q. (No microphone).
COACH KILL: If they gave it to us, we would have. They didn't give it to us. We got coached up on what to look for in that situation. Marqueis is a smart kid that spends a lot of time with me on what we can and can't do. And it wasn't there. But if they have had given it to us, we'll take it. But they didn't. So we did the smart thing and wound up kicking it.

Q. (No microphone).
COACH KILL: I mean I thought our guys did a great job. They shone last year 30 different ways to go for two. Lane does a good job with all that stuff. People make you do that to make you prepare. So I mean you spend half your time preparing for that stuff and you can't work on everything else. But our defense -- you know, they did a good job on that and they also did a good job on fourth down. We made some big conversions in there.
So like I said, there's a lot of good things to take from the film. I don't want to sound negative whatsoever. There's a lot of good things to take from the film and there's a lot of things we can get better at. But that's the way it is in any program in America right now. Every coach is saying the same thing. You just wish you were prefacing it with a win instead of a loss, but that's the way it is.

Q. Any other updates as far as the injury (no microphone)?
COACH KILL: Yeah, Aaron Hill, he's got a hamstring, he's probably about 75 percent, and he's a good football player. That's two linebackers that we're missing right now and we'll be very careful with him. You know, you get a hamstring you gotta make sure they're ready to go. You don't want to take a chance on that because that could go on and on and on. But he's worked hard rehabbing and things of that nature. So that's probably as far as the two guys that have the opportunity would be playing for us right now and contributing, those two. Bill did not play and Aaron is very questionable.

Q. What do you think about the adjustments the linebackers made with those two guys out on Saturday?
COACH KILL: Well, I think we're fortunate to have Coach Miller as a linebacker coach. He's a good coach and he's been doing it a long time, and you know, I think the kids stepped up at the plate, and you know, Ryan Grant stepped it up and did some good things in the game. So I mean that's just part of football. You gotta play the ones that you have and coach 'em up and just don't sit around and complain about it. You find a way to get it done, you know. So that's what we do.

Q. Do you know when (no microphone)?
COACH KILL: Well, I'm sure of that. And he'll be highly motivated, just like everybody else that's going to come in this stadium right now. I don't know him well. No, I don't. But you know, I'm sure that he'll have his team ready to play. I know their offensive coordinator very well. So I know they'll be ready to play, and again, where we're at in our program right now, the only thing I can control is our players, and that's all I can control against USC. And I've gotta do a better job and they've gotta continue to learn. And I'm excited about it. I mean I enjoy the process. I enjoy trying to get everything you can out of every kid. And if we can do that, you know, I can live with a lot of things. But we have a lot more to get. I really believe that. So hopefully we'll keep improving.

Q. Have you thought about what it's going to be on the home side? What's it like to have a stadium like that as far as recruiting and bringing kids on the campus?
COACH KILL: Well, we're blessed. There's no question about that, and we're excited about that. I'm excited about having the opportunity to be here. I'm blessed with it. I understand that.
But I'm excited, to be honest with you, I like playing at home. And I'm excited about having our fans there. And hopefully our football team. I'm excited about every week because it's a new challenge, and every team's different. And I want to see us get better. And I want to see us get better. And if we don't, then that's going to bother me.
So we have a huge challenge ahead of us with the coaching staff to make sure that we keep going the direction that we want to go, and hopefully our kids respond to that because it's easy to prepare when you don't have school. Now you've got school. They've been in school and it's a whole different world. They thought they were in the NFL the last three weeks, but now they go back to college and they gotta balance school, football, girl friends, all those other problems they got. Then when we get them over here we want them to concentrate on football. So that's a challenge for us, so we need to make sure we get that done.

Q. What did you think about that interception with no call?
COACH KILL: Absolutely. Never been flagged. I've coached all my career. Never been flagged. Everybody said, boy, coach got after that official, but you never know what I'm saying down there. I might have been asking him if he had a hot date that night. You don't know what I said.
And I can't -- as far as -- hey, aggressive football is aggressive football, so I'm not going to moan and groan about it. You know, that kid made a good interception and he made an aggressive play, and if I was on the other side of it, we'd be coaching that aggressive play. We just didn't make the play. And somebody said, well, should he have made the throw. Hey, he made a back shoulder throw, and I mean that's -- I'd have thrown it. It happens and you move on, you know.

Q. Did you end up filming the sidelines?
COACH KILL: Yes, I did. Yes, I did. We did a little extra running. Did a little extra running. I thought there was a group that did a great job, and we had a group that could have done better. And film don't lie. So it's a great thing. Film never lies. You can always try to work it to make it lie, but good players are good players and the ones that don't do what they're supposed to, they always seem to show up. You learn a lot about your team filming that sideline.

Q. Did you film the kids playing or kids that aren't playing?
COACH KILL: The whole thing, the whole thing. I want to see how we're operating. You can tell when players come off frustrated. It doesn't mean you get on them, those kind of things, but if you got a kid that's frustrated, sometimes you don't see that as a coach. So then you can talk to him on Sunday or even after the game, say, hey, we understand you're a competitor, but you gotta play with great composure and so forth.
And you can also see how coaches react, see how I react. I look at myself, too. I did an okay job for a while and there was a few times I didn't do so good either, didn't hold my composure. So we all need to be evaluated sometimes, held accountable.

Q. (No microphone).
COACH KILL: Did I do some extra running? I need to do some extra running. Are you saying I'm fat, Bill, or what? (Laughs). Now we're getting personal now. That's all right. Anything else? Thanks.

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