Coach Jerry Kill went bowling in his first season at NMSU; he's cautiously optimistic heading into Year 2

LAS CRUCES – Tat Reapers Tattoo Studio sits snug at Cottonwood Corner off East Lohman Avenue, between an income tax facility and a CBD shop. Both windows are covered with a graphic of the grim reaper.

It’s Trae Abbott’s shop. A sketcher by habit, he got into tattoos while he was studying at New Mexico State. But when Abbott became a firefighter in Las Cruces, he quickly realized he’d have to find a way to supplement his income.

Then, he met a local tattoo artist.

“He was like, ‘you wanna buy a tattoo gun?’” Abbott remembered. “I bought it off him for $40 and tattooed my leg that night,” pointing to a jagged skull on his left thigh.

Years after a tattoo he still refuses to get touched up, Abbott opened Tat Reapers.

One day, he got an email from a New Mexico State football staffer. Head coach Jerry Kill had made a bet with the team, you see, and since they held up their end of the deal with a 24-19 win in the Quick Lane Bowl — after a 1-5 start, no less — Kill now had to get a tattoo.

Would Abbott be interested?

“I was like, ‘oh man, I’d love to,’” he said.

The pictures are out there. Kill came in. Abbott offered numbing creams. Sprays. All sorts of stuff to reduce the discomfort of getting two six-shooters crossed at the barrels and ‘2022 NMSU BOWL CHAMPS‘ scrawled on his right shoulder.

All of which Kill didn’t need. He just chatted with Abbott the whole time. Even offered to get him out to a game this season.

“We go to the games here and there anyway,” Abbott said. “Now we’ll have even more of a reason to do it, you know?”

Kill likes the tattoo. One, he thinks Abbott did a nice job. But mainly because it won’t let him forget last year — specifically, what they proved at a place boasting the second-worst winning percentage (.403) among FBS programs around 100 years or longer.

“I like it when they say, ‘eh, he can’t do it here,’” he said. “When I took the job, I had so many people call me saying, ‘you’re going to the worst football team in the country and a place that has nobody that cares.’”

Year 2 kicks off on Saturday. People do care and it isn’t hard to see. As part of Kill’s contract, he has a new practice field. New parking lots are coming. NMSU will break ground on a new player facility in September and there are promises of a new jumbotron at Aggie Memorial Stadium, “not one you can’t hardly see the lights on,” Kill says.

It was a comeback story at first. It doesn’t feel like one anymore. There’s reasonable, reachable expectations. Excitement where there rarely was before, coming quicker than anybody thought possible.

Maybe there’s an inclination to floor it, push the pace and catch everybody quicker than they would’ve ever thought.

Instead, Kill taps the brakes.

“Even though we won a bowl game, we’re not as far along as people probably think we are,” he said bluntly. “We still got a lot of work to do. How far we’ll go this year is how much these players buy into what we’re doing. They should buy in because of what we did last year.”

So, it’s cautious optimism for now. As he’s said before, Kill feels the offense will be better. And although they lost a lot, he believes the defense will, too.

“I definitely think we’re on the right track,” Kill said. “But every year is different. Every team’s chemistry is different. Sometimes you get the breaks and sometimes you don’t. We’re somewhere in the middle.”

Which has always been the process — a part of why he’s at NMSU in the first place.

“I wanted to prove I could do it again,” said Kill, a Kansas native and 40-year coaching veteran with stops at Saginaw Valley State, Emporia State, Southern Illinois, Northern Illinois and Minnesota.

***

There was 1:04 left at Amon G. Carter Stadium. Gerry Bohanon, Baylor’s 6-foot-3, 221 pound junior quarterback from Earle, Ark., didn’t have much time and knew it, too. He dropped back, looked to his right and saw a reliable set of hands in tight end Ben Sims, running an out to the sideline.

Bohanon didn’t even step into his throw, releasing the ball practically a millisecond before Sims turned his head back toward the line of scrimmage. At the same time, TCU linebacker Shad Banks Jr. was creeping into the area.

Whether it was a good throw or a bad throw is hard to tell. But Banks stepped in and caught it. He took the interception out of bounds and then sprinted to his teammates. They sprinted to the sidelines. TCU ran out the last 60 seconds remaining in regulation, sealing a 30-28 win over No. 12 Baylor.

As fans streamed onto the field, defensive end Ochaun Mathis and defensive tackle Kenny Turner both grabbed a full Gatorade cooler, looking to douse their guy. But they couldn’t find him. Instead, they chose a random TCU staffer, who looked at them and pointed over in the distance as if to say, what the hell are you doing, he’s right over there.

At this moment, all this chaos around him, Jerry Kill stood in between two police officers with his arms crossed. He watched.

He smiled.

“It kinda told me, ‘hey, you know what,’” Kill remembered, “‘I can still do this.’”

There were more than a few moments where he didn’t think he could.

Kill hit “rock-bottom” in 2014. Bad shape doesn’t do it justice. The reigning Big Ten Coach of The Year suffered through 12 to 14 seizures every two weeks. He was not sleeping enough. Not eating enough.

“And they couldn’t get the drugs right,” he said. “A bad combination.”

After a 4-3 start with Minnesota in 2015, Kill retired for the first time. Dr. Brien Smith, an epilepsy specialist based out of Grand Rapids, Mich., helped him get back on his feet in the aftermath. Kill then moved down to Florida, where he spent his days walking the beach and wrote a book — “Chasing Dreams: Living My Life One Yard at a Time.” The point was: relax.

Then, the phone rang. John Currie, the then-athletic director at Kansas State, wanted to know if Kill was interested in a hybrid assistant athletic director-analyst role in Manhattan. Kill hadn’t even been out a full season — but who turns down Bill Snyder?

He accepted.

“I was keeping reasonable hours,” Kill said, “but still, reasonable for me at that time was 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. And I felt good.”

In 2017, the phone rang again. This time it was Rutgers head coach Chris Ash. Losses were piling up. Things were getting messy. And they could use some help on the offensive side of the ball.

“And I go, oh no,” Kill half-groaned, half-laughed.

But Kill came, joining as the Scarlet Knights’ offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. One day after a 16-13 loss to Eastern Michigan, he had a seizure in the Rutgers football office he later wished wasn’t made public.

“I did my job — I helped Chris,” Kill said. “And he knew it wasn’t gonna be long – probably a year-type deal.”

Which it was. Kill retired again on Dec. 19, 2017, then saying he “just ran out of juice.” His former post, Southern Illinois, reached out to see if he was interested in being a special assistant to the chancellor.

Again, he accepted. Two months later, SIU chancellor Carlo Montemagno decided to not renew athletic director Tommy Bell’s contract — elevating Kill to fill the vacancy.

It wasn’t a great fit. “I helped them out but I didn’t want no part of that,” he said. “I’m a football coach.” In light of that, Kill spent plenty of his time on the road, taking in practices at Michigan or Notre Dame, either to offer his thoughts or just be around the game.

Another phone call came. Virginia Tech was 2-1 but then-Hokies head coach Justin Fuente needed help. This time, Kill would be a special assistant to the head coach. If athletic director Whit Babcock were to leave, it wouldn’t be Kill filling his shoes.

“I said, what the hell? I want to get back in football,” he said. Kill resigned from SIU on Sept. 16, 2019 and moved to Blacksburg, Virginia the next day, initially staying in a hotel before getting an apartment near the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Kill loved it. The people. The atmosphere at Lane Stadium on Saturday nights. His role, an off-field one that allowed for everything a football coach would want — except for actually being on the field with the players.

“We turned it around, went to a bowl game,” he said, “and we ran the ball good. And I would’ve stayed there but …”

An old friend called. TCU was struggling and they, too, needed help. “‘No way you can afford my ass,’” Kill remembered telling head coach Gary Patterson, a dare as much as it was a polite rejection.

He doesn’t remember whether it was two or three days after initial contact when TCU and Patterson came back with the offer of a doubled salary and a message: Well, I did what you told me to do.

Kill asked for a couple days to think about it. There are times when where you are comes in direct conflict with who you are. There was Jerry Kill, happy and healthy in Blacksburg – stay? And there was Jerry Kill, benevolent fixer of programs big and small – go?

As hard of a decision as it was, it was harder to not take Patterson up on his offer. In 2021, Kill went for the fix, a new set of challenges at hand in Fort Worth. For his part, he felt they got close.

“I think people know now that it was about a year away from fixing it,” Kill said, referencing the Horned Frogs’ 2022-23 run to the CFP title game. “They ran the same offense basically. And it was all Gary’s kids except for maybe a couple.”

However close they were, TCU was 3-5 when Patterson was fired on Halloween. It wasn’t much of a question who he wanted to serve as interim.

“‘You’ve been a head coach,’” Kill remembered Patterson saying. “I said, ‘I don’t know if I can do that.’ He said, ‘I want you to do it for me.’

“And I said, ‘okay.’”

Six days later, Shad Banks Jr. stepped in front of a pass from Gerry Bohanon.

***

That’s the long version, Kill admits. TCU went 4-4 down the stretch in his stint as interim head coach, Kill understanding the whole time he wouldn’t be considered for the permanent position.

NMSU athletic director Mario Moccia and Kill’s relationship dates back to a one-year overlap at Southern Illinois, both in the same roles then as they are now. In the years since, Moccia always told he’d always have a spot open for him if he wanted it.

One did around the time Kill left TCU. Like the others, Moccia called. A hiring that drew questions and a wildly unexpected 7-6 year followed. One big fix at the end of a series of small ones, a football nomad coming to rest.

“It’s been a big circle. Big story,” Kill says, adjusting in his desk chair. “Some ups and downs. I don’t regret any of it. Had a lot of success. Coached a lot of great kids. Gotten a lot of stuff I probably didn’t deserve out of it,” he motions around his office, “awards and stuff like that.”

Kill, who turned 62 on Thursday, doesn’t like change much and of course, there’s plenty to choose from. He’s not a fan of the transfer portal’s current iteration and the message it sends. NIL-wise, if college football is trending toward a model similar to the NFL anyway, he thinks they should put a salary cap on to help level the playing field.

But he confesses what everybody else has: “Nick Saban’s changed. Everybody’s changed. Or they wouldn’t be in the business,” he said.

Kill said he used to think there was only one way to be a head coach — “because that’s all I’ve done my whole life.” The big circle changed that.

“I still put in the hours but I’ve had change,” Kill said. “I’ve called plays for years. Now our coordinators call plays. I’m kind of the CEO: In this day and age, I still make practice schedules, I’ve turned into really taking care of the players. Because you have to.

“And then raising money — you have to.”

When Kill was hired, he cut a $125,000 check to the program — immediately becoming NMSU’s most prominent football booster in the process. “That told me right there, financially, we’re in trouble,” he laughed.

Things have gotten better since. Kill’s been active traveling the state for prospective boosters, able to lean on some out-of-state connections from the past to get further financial support.

“People have been more excited about football than they’ve been in a long time,” he said. “But what’s that mean, I don’t know. What you invest in is what you get. And we still have to invest. We’re not even close to where we need to be in (the) investment part.”

Which is a part of the process. Year 2 and all the wrinkles that may come with it will be here soon. It might help with the finances. It might meet expectations. It might not end in a tattoo.

However it shakes out, Kill will be there working.

“And if I get tired, shit, I’ll go home,” he said. “I never used to do that.”