Signing Day 2012: Jerry Kill's Coaching Will Determine Future of Golden Gophers

Fans of the Minnesota Golden Gophers football program have been here before. A new coach with a bunch of promises and said to be a great recruiter is about to officially unveil his first full recruiting class for the Golden Gophers.

As crazy as it may sound, there is a little bit of hype to see what Jerry Kill was able to do in his first full recruiting season as the Gopher football coach. So far, it looks pretty good as Kill has developed a relationship with high school coaches around the state of Minnesota.

Kill has notched three of the state's most talented recruits in quarterback Philip Nelson, offensive lineman Jonah Pirsig and (barring another last-minute change of heart) wide receiver Andre McDonald. However, Gopher fans can look back on the last coach that unveiled a solid recruiting class and remember this:

It's not the number of high-quality recruits that come to the University of Minnesota; it's what the coach can do with them.

The U of M is a unique situation. It's not like Alabama or LSU, where they can pump NFL-caliber players in and out of their lineups without trying. The Gophers have to work hard to get the recruits they actually get, and that's what made former coach Tim Brewster's 2008 recruiting class so exciting.

MarQueis Gray was the 13th-best quarterback prospect in the nation. He was going to be joined by an elite linebacker prospect, Keanon Cooper. Along with other top recruits like Sam Maresh, Brandon Green and Kevin Whaley, the Gophers were supposed to be on the rise.

That's when Brewster's inability to coach at any level of football left "Gopher Nation" miles short of Pasadena despite the bus being started up at Brewster's introductory press conference a year earlier.

Brewster didn't really know how to be a head coach, since he had one previous stop as the lead guy at a high school in Indiana. Without the proper guidance, the Gophers flopped and the recruiting class that Brewster had lauded so much didn't really amount to much.

That's where the challenge begins for Jerry Kill. While the Gophers were only able to put together a 3-9 record last season, it might not be the fault of Kill because the development of Brewster's players was so far behind.

When Kill was hired for the head coaching vacancy last offseason, he prided himself on developing talent that wasn't found by the recruiting outlets that rank incoming prospects.

That's a good thing, because it's the only way Kill will find early success for Golden Gopher football.