MINNEAPOLIS -- The first time Jerry Kill walked into the media room at TCF Bank Stadium, he made few promises beyond a gritty style and a blue-collar culture he promised to employ in rebuilding a struggling Minnesota football program coming off a 3-9 campaign.
On that brisk day on Dec. 6, 2010, he told stories of hard work and humbling progress. In the late 1980s, he was just a high school coach in Missouri. Twenty years later, he'd earned a Power 5 job.
"It is a tremendous opportunity and, I think, great timing," Kill said in a statement then.