Jerry Kill has been a successful head coach at every level, and he is familiar with football in the Kansas area.
He is a native of Cheney, Kan., and got his start coaching at different schools in the Midwest. Kill admits he is a Kansas State “guy” but has followed the KU football program.
Kill is serving as the interim head coach at TCU and had a chance to study the Jayhawks on film last week. Yesterday Kansas took TCU to the wire in a 31-28 loss where they were 21-point underdogs.
He believes Lance Leipold is the right coach to turn the program around.
“The guy's a good football coach,” Kill said after the game. “Everybody wants to go hire the big name and all that kind of stuff. He kind of came up like I did, he was (at) division three, I don't know how many national championships, you can't count them. Then he got his chance of Buffalo, a tough job, got it turned.”
Jerry Kill is 153-99 overall as a college head coach. He has been in the same shoes as Leipold moving from a MAC school and building a Power Five program.
He was named the head coach at Northern Illinois in 2008 and turned the program around before being hired at Minnesota.
“Kansas, they finally got it right,” Kill said. “No disrespect to anybody, they finally got it right. They're going to be something to reckon with as the next three to four years go. And he's further along in a lot of ways, when we took Minnesota job over. He's further along in the first year than we were, then we got it turned in the third year.”
There is a connection with Kill and Leipold.
KU quarterback coach Jim Zebrowski was with Kill at Northern Illinois in 2010 and moved with to Minnesota for the next five years. Leipold hired Zebrowski in 2016 to coach quarterbacks at Buffalo.
“He's doing it the right way,” Kill said of Leipold. “He's a disciplined coach and not going to put up with kids not being on time. That kind of thing. I know a lot about him because my quarterback coach (Zebrowski) that worked for me at Northern and Minnesota is their quarterback coach, so I know the insides.”
The Jayhawks have already shown progress in Leipold’s first year. The results have come quick, and the coaches did not have the opportunity to work with the players until fall camp started in August. The groundwork has been put in the place for the future.
“Just remember they didn't have spring ball and they went in there and had a lot of kids transfer in the portal, all that stuff,” Kill said. “So, he's done a great job of putting the base together. Now, he's got a start framing the house, so to speak, and he's done a pretty good job of it right now. He gave us all we wanted and beat Texas.”
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