NIU football coach Kill hopes to work Saturday

DEKALB - Defensive coordinator Tracy Claeys was the last man off Northern Illinois' practice field Tuesday night.

Upon returning to his Yordon Center office, he found an e-mail from Jerry Kill's wife, Rebecca.

She reported that NIU's head coach, cooped up in a Northwestern Memorial Hospital room, wanted Claeys to drive to Chicago and pick him up so he could get back to coaching football.

Kill, initially hospitalized Sunday morning with a case of dehydration related to his surgery on Sept. 3, also wanted Claeys to know he's feeling better and joking around.

Clearly, Kill hopes to work Northern Illinois' game at Illinois on Saturday. But the Huskies outlined a contingency plan Tuesday to allow Kill to put his health first.

"We're feeling good about his progress and his recovery," said NIU athletic director Jeff Compher. "But it's very important that he get recovered and get back with us and be healthy."

If Kill's doctor tells him not to coach, Claeys will serve as the acting boss. It's a role he fulfilled on two occasions at Southern Illinois when Kill took ill.

Claeys and offensive coordinator Matt Limegrover will continue to call plays side by side upstairs, while linebackers coach Tom Matukewicz will wear Kill's two-way headset and serve as Claeys' conduit on the sidelines.

"We've done it before and it works good," Claeys said.

Limegrover remembers the time when Kill, who wasn't supposed to be coaching, sat next to him in the booth for an SIU game against Missouri State and pointed at plays on Limegrover's cheat sheet that he wouldn't mind seeing run.

"I think you'd call them 'helpful hints,' " Limegrover said. "But when you get helpful hints from your boss, you go, 'That's pretty helpful and that's a good hint, I think I'll go with it.'

"But seriously, this is therapy for him. Him just being around the kids, even if he drives down the day of the game and sits in the press box, that'll mean so much more for him that lying in a hospital bed."