Kill signs $8.4M deal to coach until 2018

In the midst of a losing season in which blowout losses have become the norm, Gophers head football coach Jerry Kill finally got some good news: He has job security.

Kill signed a seven-year contract to remain with the program through February 2018, athletics director Joel Maturi announced in a release Tuesday.

The deal will pay him $1.2 million annually for a total of $8.4 million including base salary and compensation for media appearances and endorsements.

“This contract represents a significant commitment to coach Kill and our belief in his vision for Gopher football,” Maturi said in the release. “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 contract is retroactive to December 2010, when Kill was first announced as the Gophers’ 27th head football coach, two months after Tim Brewster was bought out from his contract.

“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 in the release. “I’m glad it’s now settled and we can move on from here. We are excited about the future of our program.”

“This isn’t about Jerry Kill and a contract; this is about the football program and where we want to go with it,” Kill said at his weekly press conference Tuesday.

“There’s no question that Joel [Maturi] and our administration here — there’s no question our president knows our football program needs to go another direction.” Kill later added: “I know our president is 110 percent in. Period.”

Kill announced Tuesday one of his plans for the new assurance of a paycheck: he plans to buy around 4,000 students lunch Saturday.

“Those kids have been good to us and taking care of us and, you know, we are not doing very well. So I said, ‘Let’s reward them.’”

“They deserve that,” he said.

The deal includes a buyout of $600,000 per season for each year bought out. It also has incentives that would pay him for winning the Big Ten ($150,000), winning five conference games ($50,000) and $25,000 for marginal victories exceeding five. Kill has also stressed the dire state of the program’s academics, for which there are also financial incentives detailed.

Maturi’s hire of Kill drew immediate ire from the vocal portion of the Gophers’ fan base after he had promised a “Tubby Smith-like” hire.

His blue-collar attitude has since won over a portion of the student body and one former student said he was glad Kill and the University completed the extension.

“It’s a big rebuilding project,” recent University graduate Andrew Shipe said. “He talks about building foundation on concrete instead of sand.”

 “I was initially surprised when I read the news to be honest with you,” Shipe said. He noted that it is likely a big recruiting advantage, because not many coaches have a seven-year deal and that shows a lot of confidence.

“That’s a great thing,” quarterback MarQueis Gray said. “For myself, I had a new coach almost every year since I’ve been here.  That’s great for the younger guys.  Having that one head coach can help the team a lot.  Fortunately for Minnesota, they got that.”

Kill added: “[The deal] doesn’t mean we are going to wave a magic wand and win 10 games all of a sudden. [It] just means we start putting the concrete in so to speak.”

Some fans have questioned the timing of the deal, though. The team has started 1-6, with big losses to conference opponents and nonconference losses to New Mexico State and North Dakota State.

Kill has a history of seizures, including a very public episode at the end of a Sept. 10 game against New Mexico State. He has missed numerous practices because of the condition this season, but has not missed any games.

—Sports reporter Adam Richard contributed to this report.