Kill faces his tall task at U's spring practice

The Gophers football team went 1-10 in 1983 under Joe Salem, when the team got every bad break under the sun, including injuries to several top players and budget problems.

Lou Holtz took over in 1984 and a lot of those injured players were again healthy. On Holtz's first day of practice, he turned to me and said: "These guys aren't that bad. They look better than what we had at Arkansas."

Well, I assure you that when new Gophers coach Jerry Kill holds his first Gophers practice Thursday, he won't say, "These guys are better than what I had at Northern Illinois." His final Huskies team won the Mid-American Conference and beat Fresno State 40-17 in the Humanitarian Bowl on Dec. 18, after Kill had accepted the Gophers job earlier that month.

The Gophers did win their final two games last year, but frankly it was a group of seniors who played the big part in those victories over Illinois and Iowa. They are gone.

The team Kill inherits also is short of numbers because some of Tim Brewster's recruits left. The players who stayed need to show a lot of improvement over last year. Kill and his staff need to turn some unknown players into standouts to have a winning season.

The Kill staff knows it has a tough job ahead of it.

"I think the biggest thing that we have to do is we've got to instill ... what our expectations are and how we want to practice and what we're trying to get out of practice," Kill said. "We have so many things that we have to get done in this first year, but the No. 1 thing is to show the kids what we expect and what we want out of practice.

To be honest, I wonder if Kill would have taken this job if he knew all the problems that will face him this year. There are a ton of academic issues, not a lot of great players and other reasons why the team hasn't won or shared a Big Ten title since 1967. He isn't the type to complain.

Former football coach Glen Mason did a good job despite all of the obstacles, and if he wanted to talk, he could list many reasons why the Gophers haven't consistently won.

But after being around Kill a lot since he took over the job, I believe -- with a lot of help from athletic director Joel Maturi, a bigger budget and a new university president -- in two or three years, Kill will get the job done.

He has done a fantastic job of getting former Gophers football players and the business community interested in the program. Despite coming in late, his staff did a good recruiting job.

The man has been a winner every place he has been, and I'm confident, given time, he will do the same here. Maturi picked the right man for this unique job.

Warmath influence An original poster drawn for Murray Warmath entitled "Murray Warmath Maxims" will be appearing on the Gophers football bulletin board in the near future, listing 10-plus things a team has to do to win.

The poster, which hung in the locker room during Warmath's coaching career, was presented to Kill by former Gophers football player and professional wrestler Jim Brunzell. Kill showed the poster to the 2010 football lettermen when he met with them Wednesday morning.

Gophers safety Kim Royston -- the former Wisconsin Badger who broke his leg last spring and missing the 2010 season -- will be on the field ready to compete Thursday when spring football practice opens.

Dan Berezowitz, who did a great job as recruiting coordinator for Brewster, is still job-seeking after his Oklahoma job didn't work out. ... Rumors are that Brewster, who still is looking for a coaching job, could wind up with ESPN.

Minnesota Badgers The only four Minnesota natives remaining in the NCAA men's basketball tournament are Jon Leuer from Orono, Jordan Taylor from Benilde-St. Margaret's, Mike Bruesewitz from Henry Sibley and Jared Berggren from Princeton, all with Wisconsin. The Badgers face Butler on Thursday night in the Sweet 16.

Bruesewitz continues to play important minutes as a sophomore, getting eight points and nine rebounds in the Badgers' first victory over Belmont and 11 points and six rebounds in the win over Kansas State. Berggren has scored eight points and grabbed two rebounds in 16 minutes in the two contests.

Jottings The Twins have removed the trees from the Target Field batter's eye, and Twins President Dave St. Peter said it was something they didn't want to do. "I can assure you it was painful for our organization to remove those trees," St. Peter said. "We loved those trees. They were a signature aspect of the ballpark, one of many, but at the end of the day we felt as though it was in our best interest to heed our players' counsel in terms of safety -- not only players' counsel, but umpires and others. We tried to create a batter's eye that frankly was fair for everybody, not just the pitchers."

Gophers basketball coach Tubby Smith just returned from Los Angeles, where he met the parents of new recruit Julian Welch of Yuba City (Calif.) Community College. He was on the Big Ten Network on Wednesday, talking about the NCAA tournament, and will also appear Thursday. Smith is one of eight coaches to take four different programs to the NCAA tournament: (Tulsa, 1994 and 1995), Georgia (1996 and 1997), Kentucky (every year from 1998 through 2007) and Minnesota (2009 and 2010).

Mario Lucia, the outstanding Wayzata hockey junior and son of Gophers coach Don Lucia, could wind up at Notre Dame, according to close friends. Lucia is expected to be a first-round NHL draft choice and the first Minnesotan taken.