Gophers flipped the script on Hawkeyes in 2014, but does it matter now?

IOWA CITY - Former Minnesota Coach Jerry Kill was blunt with his program, his team, his coaches and his players before the 2014 season.

Kill saw how Iowa manhandled the line of scrimmage against the Gophers in 2012 and 2013, games the Hawkeyes won by a combined score of 54-20. In 2012, running back Mark Weisman blasted through Minnesota for 177 yards and a score in a 31-13 Iowa win. In 2013, Weisman rushed for 147 yards in a statistically dominant 23-7 victory. The Hawkeyes rolled up a 465-165 yardage advantage, including 246-30 on the ground.

That sent Kill and his staff to the drawing board in 2014 in preparation for Iowa.

'They kicked our butt up front,” Kill said this summer. 'Weisman, I don't know how many yards he had against us the year before. He ran through us like a sieve. But we spent a lot of times during two-a-day camp, we worked on Iowa. We worked on teams that beat us. We worked on the zone play they kicked our butt on. I think just the focus of the things that they hurt us with, we were going to take that away and let them beat us another way.”

The result was a massive flip. The Gophers outrushed Iowa 291-84 in a 51-14 win. Minnesota held Weisman to 21 yards on 14 carries. All the off-season work paid off for the Gophers.

'We learned a lot from the previous year,” Minnesota defensive end Theiren Cockran said. 'We knew we had to stop Weisman, we had to stop the run. The defensive line, especially, we had to maintain our gaps. We had to be disciplined and maintain our responsibilities.”

Kill and Cockran's assessments were taken in late July when the Gophers were an up-and-coming program eyeing Wisconsin for West Division supremacy. Much has changed since those times and for both teams in dramatic fashion.

Iowa is 9-0 for the second time in school history. The Hawkeyes are ranked ninth in the latest College Football Playoff poll and need two wins to sew up the West Division crown. Unlike previous years, Minnesota (4-5, 1-4 Big Ten) needs to win two of its final three games just to reach the postseason. The Gophers beat Northwestern and Nebraska in 2013 and 2014 but lost to both by a combined 50 points this year. Minnesota is last in Big Ten scoring (20.3 points per game) and 13th in rushing. Injuries have crippled the Gophers on both sides of the ball against one of the nation's most difficult conference schedules.

But the biggest and saddest change this season was the deterioration of Kill's health. In 2013, Kill sat out seven games to deal with epilepsy and interim coach Tracy Claeys guided the squad to a 4-3 mark. Kill seemingly got his health under control last year and guided the Gophers to second place in the Big Ten West.

Kill's medication prevented him from coaching with his usual vigor. So he discarded his pills. But weeks with seizures and little sleep forced him to contemplate his own mortality. Kill retired on Oct. 28, and Claeys became the interim coach for the rest of this season.

It was an emotional transition for the program.

'The football part is easy. I've been doing this a long time and love doing it,” Claeys said. 'It's being able to do the other stuff. The other thing is as far as wanting to be - I've said I want to be the next head football coach here. I think I can do it. But believe me, I'm not putting any pressure on my self as far as that goes. But that choice, I've learned to not worry about things I can't control, like I've said. I don't have control over that. All I can do is make sure the football team is prepared as well as I can, and I'll live with the results.”

Most of the staff had coached with Kill for several years. Claeys, for instance, was Kill's assistant for 21 years. Kill's retirement came three days before the Gophers faced Michigan. Minnesota failed to score on a quarterback sneak from the 1-yard line on the game's final play in a 29-26 loss. Saturday, the Gophers played at No. 3 Ohio State and fell 28-14. This week, it's a rivalry game at No. 9 Iowa, which still is smarting from last year's blowout.

'We definitely got beat bad last year so we've got to focus on them,” Iowa fullback Macon Plewa said. 'Thinking about next week, it's going to be a great atmosphere. Night games at Kinnick are special, especially against a rival like that. It's going to be a great atmosphere.”

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