Kill gets benefit of Maturi's doubt

It took Jerry Kill about three minutes to make us laugh.

Now he gets a few years to make us care.

Kill, the new Gophers football coach, brought his version of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour to TCF Bank Stadium on Monday, even introducing his lovely wife to prove he's America's biggest matrimonial overachiever since Lyle Lovett married Julia Roberts.

Kill, unlike his predecessor, made a great first impression, leaving a fretful fan base with mixed feelings.

It's hard not to like Kill.

It's hard to trust Maturi.

Kill is a winning football coach and program builder who can get a room laughing. His low profile is also the latest sign that either the University of Minnesota can't attract a big-name football coach, or that Maturi, the Gophers athletic director, is an impediment to doing so.

"The reality is that there are no guarantees," Maturi said. "Folks, there has not been a coach at the University of Minnesota since Murray Warmath who has left with a winning record in the Big Ten. That should tell us something. It ain't easy."

I asked Maturi how many coaches turned him down, or turned him away. He wouldn't answer.

Someone asked if he regretted promising a "Tubby Smith" hire, then delivering a John Doe candidate.

"I wish I could have those words back," Maturi said. "From Day 1, I knew we were not going to make a Tubby Smith hire, because from Day 1, I knew there was not a head BCS football coach out there who wanted this job -- a successful BCS football coach. That's just a fact."

What we don't know is whether the history of the program, or the people who run it, scared away more prominent candidates.

Maturi's right -- the program has stunk for decades. In fact, Maturi fired the most successful long-term head coach the program has employed since Warmath in Glen Mason.

Maturi's job is to sell the Twin Cities and the new stadium and fantastic facilities and opportunity for improvement to the best candidates, and it appears he failed to do so.

If you were a top candidate, would you want to work for an outgoing president who fully supports an athletic director who appears weak, who hired Tim Brewster, and who was accompanied on his coaching search travels by a local radio sidekick?

At no point during this search did Maturi and the university look like big-timers. Maturi admits he oversold his ability to make an impact hire, and President Robert Bruininks has supported Maturi even with three of his four most prominent programs -- football, men's hockey and women's basketball -- in decline or disarray.

The best estimates are that at least a handful of Maturi's best candidates had no interest in the job, even candidates from lesser programs.

Maturi and the fans and boosters who detest him can agree on this: It's time for the Gophers football program, for once, to get lucky. Even blind luck, for a cursed program, would be welcome.

Hiring a big-name coach didn't work here -- Lou Holtz won 10 games, then left.

Hiring a coach for continuity didn't work -- John Gutekunst, Holtz's defensive coordinator, was lucky to last six years.

Hiring a gladhander didn't work -- Jim Wacker, who won at TCU, sent this program tumbling.

Hiring a respected old-school coach worked only so well -- Mason improved the program but never finished better than fourth in the Big Ten.

Hiring a bull-slinging so-called recruiter didn't work -- Brewster turned out to be Wacker without the charm.

Now we turn to Kill, a small-town Kansas man who worked his way through the coaching ranks, from high school to small colleges and now to this beautiful and too-often-empty stadium.

I would have preferred former Texas Tech coach Mike Leach, who would have won games, sold tickets and given the program a national profile.

I would have preferred Marc Trestman, who has won two consecutive Grey Cups and knows the college landscape.

I would have preferred Wisconsin offensive coordinator Paul Chryst, for his expertise and knowledge of the Big Ten.

Kill wasn't my first choice, or Maturi's, or the boosters' or the fans'.

Now that he's here, we're left to hope that Kill's knack for overachieving will extend beyond his marriage.

Jim Souhan can be heard Sundays from 10 a.m. to noon and weekdays at 2:40 p.m. on 1500ESPN. His Twitter name is Souhanstrib. jsouhan@startribune.com