Through the first two years of Jerry Kill’s tenure as the University of Minnesota’s football coach, the NFL Draft didn’t mean much in Dinkytown.
After a 3-9 campaign in 2011, none of Kill’s players were selected. The same thing happened the next year.
As Minnesota has steadily improved over the past few seasons, so has its players’ draft stock. In 2014, two of Kill’s players were selected.
And last week, four former Gophers were taken in the NFL Draft, punctuating the improvement the program has seen under Kill in four years.
There were significant bumps in the road along the way, but Kill has changed the football culture at Minnesota, and signs point to more improvement coming in the future.