NEWS AND NOTES FROM JERRY KILL'S B1G FOOTBALL MEDIA DAY PRESSER

Jerry Kill took the podium at the Big Ten media days today for the first time as Minnesota head coach.  After the mess that was Tim Brewster it was nice to have a little sanity coming from Minnesota.  Here are the highlights:

ON TAKING THE MINNESOTA JOB:

“It’s been a long journey for us coming in and taking the job in December.”

“I think anytime you go in and take a program over there’s a lot to do.”

ON SEEING IMPROVEMENT IN HIS TEAM:

“I think in spring ball from day 1 to day 15 we got better.”

ON QUARTERBACK COMPETITION:

“I think that going through spring ball, the guy that’s without question the most gifted athlete on our team is Marquise.”

“I think you have to have two quarterbacks that can play.”

"Right now we feel good about our number 1 quarterback.”

“We don’t have as much depth right now, and we need someone who can push Marquise and show who that number 2 is.”

“Our thing with Marquise is we’ll keep him at quarterback. That’s what he wants to do, and that’s what we need him to do.”

"Certainly going through our schedule strength training is about staying healthy. We have our work cut out for us like everyone does, and we need to stay healthy.”

ON FORMER SUCCESS AGAINST THE BIG TEN:

“It’s a little bit different, you look at our conference especially with Nebraska coming in you have to play that competition week in and week out.”

ON THE DIVISION SETUP:

“I learned a long time ago that you don’t control those types of things.”

ON THE TASK OF REBUILDING:

“All the things in the 4 or 5 months that I’ve been at the University of Minnesota are the same as they were at other places I’ve been.”

“You have to buy into the team philosophy. It can’t be about ‘I,’ and we live in an ‘I’ society sometimes.”