Former Gopher head coach and current Rutgers offensive coordinator Jerry Kill joined Mackey and Judd on 1500 ESPN this morning to share his thoughts on everything that transpired recently at Minnesota.
-It wasn’t just Tracy, it was the whole staff, and all of them that had been together for a long time. You never want anyone to lose a job. No one thinks about the other things like family.
-Has gotten calls from around the country of people who were shocked by the decision.
-I don’t know all the details about the situation.
-There my family. Response that he has is shock, and he’s still in shock.
-AD talked about class. I would say that the program has been ran in a first class manner, don’t think anyone in the country would argue. Before you make a statement like that, go back and find out where the program was, and where it is now.
-Players don’t know Coyle, coaches don’t know him. To call people out like that, is not professional. Not saying anything negative about him, just stating how he feels.
-If you want to fire someone because they didn’t meet expectations, just say it. But to go down and talk about their integrity and class is not the way to go. That’s overboard.
-I’m pretty well connected in the college world, and there’s been a lot of talking go on that they’ve been talking to people. You don’t fire a coach unless you have someone ready to go.
-Fire someone because you want to go in a new direction, that’s understandable. Don’t come at class and integrity. Coaches have represented Minnesota, and have put everything they have into the team. Do not call it a classless program.
-All three parties could have handled the situation with the sexual assault case better. It’s not just one person at fault, and it usually starts at the top.
-The people running that program are good people. As a coach you have to deal with things you don’t want to, and you have to do it.
-Claeys told him that if they think he didn’t run the program how they wanted, and don’t think he did a good job, that’s fine, he’ll move somewhere where it’s warmer. What else is he going to say? But when you come at the class and integrity of the program, that’s a different story.
-It’s hard for me to figure out what the administration has been thinking. A lot of the time you get a new AD and he wants to go a different way. At Syracuse he did that, and he fired another guy I know. You have to accept that. It’s a hardcore business.
- I imagine the win in the Bowl game made it hard for them, but I’m guessing the decision was made before that. That’s an educated guess.
-Our athletic director at Kansas State is very out in front. We have an attorney that represents just athletics. Those people are involved immediately when there’s situations like that, and they have to determine what they want to do and how to handle it. I don’t know how it all went down, but I know Tracy was in San Diego during the decision. Coyle should have been out in front of that situation before it came. Must have been a big lapse of communication. Everyone needs to work together to get a problem solved.
-I’m disappointed and partial because those guys are my family. I can’t answer about President Kaler because I don’t know how it played out from the beginning. I don’t know if they were honest the whole time with Tracy about his job status the whole time.
-I make mistakes everyday. I admit them, learn from them, and move on. I don’t know how involved Kaler was, but I’m upset we couldn’t all come together and work things out. It’s going to hurt the football program, and it already has.
-It seems like there has been one thing after another, from Norwood’s situation on.
-He stood up for his team. What was he supposed to do? If your son is on that team, what would you do? Should have never got to the point of the boycott, but once it got to that point, there’s no coach in the country that wouldn’t have done what he did.
-Throwing only one guy under the bus. I don’t think that’s right. That’s an impartial decision, but I don’t think that’s right.
-This is a place that doesn't have an attorney in the athletic department with 26 sports. There's one African-American cop on staff. There are very sensitive issues their with all parties that go deeper than just football.
-Disappointment is more so than anything. I care about the kids and hope the kids stay and hope they continue to build what they’ve built upon. We put a lot of blood in that program, it wore my ass out. Sometimes you work harder inside the gates of Minnesota than you have to outside. It’s something new every single day, and it doesn’t have to be that way.
-I hope it does pay off and does work out in the long run. There’s a lot of people that have gone through there that improved the program. That program is a lot better from when I got there to now.
Asked about Fleck:
-I’m not going to get into anything about who coaches and anything like that. I’ve seen it happen with Tubby, and now with Tracy. Whatever coach they pick, they pick. I’m not going to go into that.
- Check the record out, check the APR out, check all the service that has gone into it. I won’t forget that, and I won’t forget the program and I hope others don’t either. I would be blind, however, to say I wasn’t disappointed in how this was all handled.
-If I’m at Rutgers that’s different, but I won’t be stepping foot back into the stadium, and I won’t be stepping back to the University. We gave our best and the state of Minnesota. My daughters there, we’ll go back. We’ll go back to pro sports games, but I will never step foot in the football stadium, and the athletic complex we had so much to do with. I will never see it. I wish them all the luck in the world, and hope the decision Mark Coyle made is right.
