Former Gophers football coach Jerry Kill has been named special assistant to the head football coach at Virginia Tech.
The move was announced Monday by Virginia Tech head coach Justin Fuente.
Kill resigned as athletic director at Southern Illinois, one of the schools where he'd been football coach before coming to Minnesota, to take his new position.
"After Coach Kill spent some time with our staff during preseason camp, it was apparent that he possesses a passion for being involved with a football program on a daily basis," Fuente told Hokiesports.com, the Virginia Tech athletic web site. "I have all the respect in the world for Coach Kill. I'm excited that he'll be an integral part of our program at Virginia Tech and can't wait for him to get on campus."
Virginia Tech is a member of the Atkantic Coast Conference and is 2-1 so far this season.
Kill was head football coach at Minnesota from 2011-15, a period during which he several times battled complications from epilepsy. Because of his health concerns, he turned the program over to top assistant Tracy Claeys and then left the Gophers on a path that took him to Kansas State as an associate athletic director, Rutgers as offensive coordinator and then Southern Illinois.
Kill left Minnesota early in 2016 after he couldn't agree on a new position when then-President Eric Kaler. The university would not offer him a job that included responsibilities in the athletic department, he said.
In February, Kill criticized current Gophers football coach P.J. Fleck, one of his former assistants, in a radio interview.
"I helped him get the job at [head coaching job] Western Michigan, and I just think sometimes the ego gets carried away," Kill said at the time.
Fleck responded by saying: "I've learned so much from him. … I'm really sorry that he feels that way. I'm not sure where that came from.
