Campus Watch

Here's a News article from Dec. 17, 2005 on the hiring of Turner Gill

Turner Gill looked at the University at Buffalo's school logo -- an interlocking U and B -- and came up with his own slogan: U Believe. Gill told the UB football players, administrators and fans his Bulls will finally become winners. If they believe.

Gill, named Buffalo's 23rd football coach at a news conference Friday night, first must evaluate the players he inherits from his predecessor, Jim Hofher. Then he must begin the laborious undertaking of reshaping a program that has won only 10 Division I- A games since 1999.

"UB will now stand for, you believe," said Gill, the fifth African-American I-A coach. "The athletes have to believe in themselves, their teammates, they have to believe in their coaches, they have to believe in the people in this institution."

Gill said he was convinced by school President John B. Simpson and Athletics Director Warde Manuel that the school is committed to building a winning football program. What Gill cannot predict is how long it will take to revive a program that hasn't had a winning season since 1996.

"Somebody has to do it, why can't it be me?" said Gill, who starts Jan. 3. "Opportunity, that's all you can ask for in life."

Gill brings 15 years of experience, including 13 at Nebraska, where he played quarterback from 1981 to '83. Although terms were not disclosed, the 43-year-old agreed to a five-year contract. Manuel said he selected Gill because of his vision, leadership and his ability to coach.

"I expect Turner to do what he knows how to do, and that's develop a program, develop young men with progress on the winning side of the ledger," Manuel said. "We've dominated the losing side of the ledger for quite sometime, and I think we're all ready to move the program forward."

Recruiting becomes first priority. Gill was lauded as one of the nation's top recruiters at Nebraska from 1992 to 2004, and the Cornhuskers won national championships in 1994, 1995 and 1997. Carl Crawford was supposed to be the next great Nebraska quarterback when Gill signed him out of Houston, but Crawford elected to play baseball and plays for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Gill had better luck with Jamaal Lord and Eric Crouch, who captured the 2001 Heisman Trophy. A native of Dallas, Gill recruited well in Texas and New Jersey.

"We only want people who want to be here," Gill said, "I'm not going to talk to a recruit and coerce him to come here. I want him to want to be here. If he doesn't want to be here, it's not going to work. I'm not going to be able to talk to him and force him to do things over a long period of time. I want a person who really wants to be here, and if that happens we're going to be able to get his full potential."

Sometimes, being known as a recruiter is viewed as a stigma, as if it makes a person's coaching ability insignificant. Having never been a coordinator, Gill, who was player development director and offensive assistant with the Green Bay Packers this season, must prove he can scheme. That concerned Manuel during the coaching search, but he was reassured by former Nebraska coach Tom Osborne.

"Coach Osborne told me Turner didn't call plays because (Osborne) was the offensive coordinator," Manuel said. "There weren't any coordinators. He said, 'As the quarterbacks coach in my offense he was an essential part of putting together the game plan and being involved in the things that were called and the decisions that were made.' "

Now it's Gill's turn to help turn around the UB fortunes.

"We're going to have fun," Gill said. "We're going to bring some excitement."

---Rodney McKissic

(www.twitter.com/rodneyjmckissic)