'Twas the night before Little Brown Jug, when all through Ann Arbor
Not a creature was stirring, not even Jerry Kill;
The Minnesota fans were drinking at Blue Leprechaun,
In hopes that Nagurski soon would be there;
While visions of Maroney at midfield danced in their heads.
However, it was not to be this year. At times Mitch Leidner looked good replacing Phillip Nelson but a head-coachless Gopher team proved no match for the mediocre looking Wolverines. The highlight for the Gophers has to be that the running game looked much better than the prior week versus Iowa (41 carries for 136 yards), the improvement from the QB position (14/21 for 145 yards) and the continued emergence of freshman TE Maxx Williams who had 5 reception for 54 yards including this beauty for a TD.
The Gophers now have a week to regroup before heading to Evanston, IL to face a Northwestern team that looked very good in a close loss to the #3 rated Buckeyes (well, it was close until OSU covered the spread on the last play of the game when a series of desperation laterals by NU resulted in a fumble in the end zone that was recovered by the Buckeyes). With Jerry Kill missing his first full game as Gophers coach, due to an epileptic seizure suffered Saturday morning, questions are going to be asked about the health of Jerry Kill and at what point does it turn in to more than just a distraction. I'm in the camp that thinks Jerry Kill has earned the right to make that determination himself with his doctor and his family but at this point he has missed 25% of the season and if that persists it is a real problem.
First off, if coaching is causing actual risk to Jerry's health, then this whole thing is a no-brainer. It's not fair that he can't do what he loves, but sometimes Life Isn't Fair, and I don't want the guy to die or cause himself significant damage. Some may say that's not for me (or anyone other than Jerry/his family/doctors) to decide, but sometimes you have to protect people from themselves. There's a reason they don't let concussed players decide if they can re-enter a game or not.
ReplyDeleteIf his health truly isn't a concern, then I'm not sure if I care about the seizures or not... primarily, because I can't tell how much it affects his team's in-games performance - but I think this needs to be the true evaluator..
If the seizures (or to put it more aptly, if Jerry's absence during the games) are causing the team to not perform as they should be, then yes, I do have concerns. If, as the coaches say, it's business as usual with or without him, then... I still have concerns for different reasons.
There's a real possibility that the Gophers don't win a B1G game this year. More than likely, they won't be favored the rest of the way and that's a problem. Whether or not the team's performance is tied to Jerry's condition is speculative, but either way, there has to be legit questions about his job simply because of the team's performance thus far.
I'm not calling for his head, and I might even give him one more year after this, but this season is shaping up to be a big step backward.
I'm over the seizure thing. At first, I was worried. However, if he's not worried, I'm not going to be. I think we're just being overprotective because we are worried for him. Kind of like if you had a daughter that wanted to play rugby with the boys. You know she's going to get hurt, but you can't really tell her not to try. He may very well die on the sideline: I'm already prepared for scenario in my head. However, I'm sure if you asked him, that's probably not a bad way to go.
ReplyDeleteAs to the effectiveness of a head coach on gameday: Brady Hoke doesn't put on a headset until there are about 2 minutes left in the half/game. Joe Pa didn't even know where he was half the time. Urban Meyer, gets pissed when his QB didn't look at him for the audible call. It all depends on their coaching style. Do I think the team would have been better with Kill there? debatable. However, I don't think it had an impact on the play calling. Jerry would have run the clock out at the end of the 1st half just like we did.
Bring back Glen Mason!
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