It’s been an eventful first year as head coach at Minnesota for Jerry Kill, although not exactly in a positive way.
Kill suffered a sideline seizure earlier this year during a loss, and has had several other episodes since. On the field, the Gophers have won just one of their first seven games this season, with the last three losses coming by an average of almost 38 points per game.
So, of course, it’s the perfect time to announce a multi-year contract.
In a release, the Gophers announced that Kill has signed a seven-year contract to coach at the school. The contract is effective as of December 2010 and runs through February 2018.
Kill had been working under the terms of a Memorandum of Agreement since his hiring early last December.
“Rebecca and I, along with our family and staff, are very thankful to the university and certainly to our administration, including director of athletics Joel Maturi and president Eric Kaler,” Kill said. “I’m glad it’s now settled and we can move on from here. We are excited about the future of our program.”
“This contract represents a significant commitment to Coach Kill and our belief in his vision for Gopher football,” Maturi said. “He has proved over the past 10 months what a great fit he is at the University of Minnesota and I have been very impressed with him as both a coach and a person. We are lucky to have him and I am thrilled that we now have an agreement in place that has secured Coach Kill as our head football coach well into the future.”
The 50-year-old Kill came to Minnesota after spending the previous three seasons as head coach at Northern Illinois.
