Gophers coach Jerry Kill walked off the field from the season's first practice and met the media, which was waiting for his reaction to AD Norwood Teague's resignation.
"I don't know a lot about it," Kill said. "I've been out here on the practice field. I found out about it earlier, and I don't know. I feel bad for the whole situation. I feel bad for everybody in the situation, and certainly not a good situation. But I trust our president, and I've talked to President Kaler, and I trust him 100 percent."
Kill's thoughts quickly shifted to the athletics facilities project, which Teague was leading. Last week at Big Ten Media Days, Kill said he's confident ground will be broken in late-September, early October.
"We're going to get that thing started, and we're going to get that done," Kill said. "Nothing's going to stop. You put that [Teague resignation] behind you, get it all over today, and let's go to work tomorrow and move on. That's the way I look at it."
"I'm confident that we'll get it done," Kill added. "I'm confident that we'll get it started, and we'll see if my word's worth a darn or not. I said at the very beginning, I was going to make sure we had it done by August and if not, they should fire me. Well, I guess they gave me an extended couple months, but I'm going to keep pushing and grinding and we'll get it done. Nothing's ever easy, but I think we'll get it done. I'm optimistic."
Asked if this could hurt the Gophers in recruiting, Kill said, "It's not good, but we'll get in there, and I think the recruits trust coach Kill."
After a few more questions about Teague's resignation, Kill said, "We're practicing. Do you think I want to talk about this? I want to talk about practice. So it's a distraction. All of it is a distraction. And so I just hope it gets ironed out, and we go to work. And I hope everybody that's involved in the thing, everything goes OK and everybody's alright, and we move on as a university."
