Hartman: Kill encouraged as Gophers begin practice

When Gophers football coach Jerry Kill was hired in 2010, the team started their motto of building a winner "brick by brick." Now Kill, entering his fourth season, said the team has made progress each year with that motto and believes that will continue as practice for the 2014 season opens Friday.

Kill said he's never felt better about the team.

"Well, I think it's a deal where our kids' preparation has been great," he said. "I think our leadership with [defensive back] Cedric Thompson and [quarterback] Mitch Leidner, they have done a great job this summer. Our kids have worked their tails off. There's a difference between last summer and this summer. Now that doesn't guarantee wins — our schedule is very difficult — but I feel good about it because it has been different this summer because of leadership. This is the best leadership we've had."

Do the Gophers have better talent?

"I think we do," Kill said. "I think our kids are bigger, stronger and faster than we were a year ago. Certainly you don't replace guys like [defensive tackle] Ra'Shede Hageman and [defensive back] Brock Vereen, but we also have a lot of people back, [including linebacker] Aaron Hill. We have a lot of people back. You fix those problems by having more people. We're very talented in the secondary, and defensive line we have to have a couple young guys step up inside."

Kill talked about some of those defensive linemen.

"Yoshoub Timms, Harold Legania, of course [Cameron] Botticelli and Scott Ekpe will be our starters. They played last year a bunch," Kill said. "… Timms is a guy that really needs to step up, and Harold Legania, off the top of my mind. Then we may have some freshmen who need to stick their nose in there a little bit."

"You don't ever replace great players," he said. "But it's our job to put somebody in position to make up for it, and if we can get a couple guys to take place of one, sometimes you can do that. The biggest thing with Brock Vereen is he's a great kid — he may start for the Bears — but we have some pretty good secondary players right now.

"I think it will be very good. I think we have one of the better secondaries around right now. I know other people don't give us credit for that and so forth, but I have been coaching awhile and athletically and physically and depth, we're in good shape there."

One thing giving Kill a lot of confidence is having a settled quarterback situation, which helps the team prepare.

"When you know who is going to be the guy and everybody knows who the backup is right now and where we're at, I think that's important," Kill said. "If we have an injury we can adjust to that, but right now I think it has been a real plus for us."

Kill talked about some of the injured players and their progress.

"[Wide receiver] Conner Krizancic, a young freshman, has had some hamstring problems and we're trying to figure out exactly what we'll do with him. A talented kid, but we need to be careful there. [Offensive lineman] Ernie Heifort will be late getting into camp, he had an accident on his moped. But other than that, we'll start camp in that shape."

Kill was asked about redshirt freshman running back Berkley Edwards, a speedster whom Kill has been excited about since he got to campus last year.

"Berkley Edwards is a kid that is athletic, had a good spring," Kill said. "We have to find some ways to get him the football, and we're excited about giving him those opportunities, but there's no question that he could be a good help for us."

Mortenson senior vice president John Wood said construction of the new Vikings stadium is right on time, meeting a targeted goal Thursday.

"It was a big day," Wood said. "We lifted and erected the first section of the support columns for the main ridge truss in the roof structure. It was a big, big piece of steel assembly, weighed about 140 tons, and we erected it exactly on the day that we planned about a year ago.

• Hollis Cavner, tournament director for the 3M Championship this weekend, was asked how he got Jack Nicklaus to come out of retirement and play in an exhibition on Saturday. "He actually has been doing some charity stuff, an event that my partner and I did at Pro Links, we did a big fundraiser for Dana Quigley's son [Devon], who is paralyzed, and we got him to play a very private event, nothing to the public, but a very private event. He loved it and enjoyed being with everybody, and we've been pushing him. We talked to him at Augusta, my partner talked to him, everyone has been pushing him to come here and play, and we just got to know him fairly well over the last couple of years because of doing charity events and stuff. I think we finally wore him down. It is not our first time we've wore somebody down."

• According to several college recruiting websites, the Gophers football team has signed nine players for the Class of 2015. They are WR/DB Ray Buford out of Southfield, Mich.; Nick Connelly, an offensive lineman from Red Wing; Demry Croft, a quarterback from Rockford, Ill.; Bronson Dovich, an offensive tackle from Chaska; Jonathan Femi-Cole, a running back from Vaughan, Ontario; Jacob Huff, a defensive back, and his twin brother, Julian Huff, a linebacker, from Bolingbrook, Ill.; Ted Stieber, an offensive tackle from Akron, Ohio; and Jaylen Waters, a linebacker from Copperas Cove, Texas.

• Vance Worley, acquired by the Twins in the Ben Revere trade with the Phillies and then later released, has resurrected his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates this season. Worley is 4-1 with a 2.54 ERA in seven starts after spending time in the Pirates' minor league system refining his technique. In 10 starts with the Twins in 2013, Worley went 1-5 with a 7.21 ERA.

Sid Hartman can be heard weekdays on 830-AM at 7:40, 8:40 and 9:20 a.m. and on Sundays at 9:30 a.m. shartman@startribune.com