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box, he explained that their assignments wouldn't change in those scenarios. "Don't worry about it," he told them. "It's not ours." The linemen looked at each other in confusion, having grown accustomed to a system in which their responsibilities frequently shifted. Limegrover under- stood their perplexity, because he knew that his former players at Minnesota would have reacted the same way if they'd been faced with a similar circumstance. But he assured the Nittany Lion linemen that they didn't have to worry about the extra defender in the box. "That will either be the quarterback or Coach Moorhead. They'll get us in the right thing," Limegrover said. Someone asked, "How about if this guy comes off the edge?" "Nope, not ours," Limegrover ex- plained. At first, the linemen could hardly be- lieve it. "They thought I was tricking them," Limegrover said. "I'm like, 'Guys, these are the guys we're responsible for. The center is going to communicate who we're responsible for. Let's make sure we take care of those five, let our awesome set of wide receivers, let our awesome tailback, let our great stable of quarter- backs, let them do what they're supposed to do in this offense. We'll do what we're supposed to do.' It took a while, but after a couple of practices they were like, 'Man, I kind of like this.' " Among those who needed some time to acclimate to the new scheme was Limegrover himself. At Minnesota he ran a system designed to put bodies on bod- ies, preventing opponents from blowing through the line unblocked. It was good at preventing tackles for loss, but when Limegrover got to Penn State, he quickly discovered that Moorhead had a different approach in mind. "The first couple days of us going through the offense, I must have said to Joe fifteen times, 'Now rewind that. Are you sure you don't want us to handle it?' " Limegrover recalled. "Finally he said, 'Lis- ten, you block those five. You tell us who those five are. Your center will tell us. You make sure you block those five. If you can't Jerry Kill, Tracy Claeys and Matt Limegrover spent 16 years working alongside each other. From Emporia State in 1999, through stops at South- ern Illinois, Northern Illinois and eventually Minnesota, the tight-knit group worked its way up the ranks to college football's highest division, en- joying success at every step along the way. But their partnership ended after Kill was forced to step down as the Gophers' head coach last season due to chronic seizures and worsening complications. In Kill's absence, Claeys was moved from defensive coordinator to head coach, and the day after the regular season ended last November, he dis- missed Limegrover and quarterbacks coach Jim Zebrowski. Minnesota Star-Tribune writer Michael Rand described the move as "almost Shakespearean in nature," and in- deed, Claeys struggled with the deci- sion to part ways with his longtime colleague, who was hired by Penn State in January to coach the offen- sive line. "I'm usually a guy who sleeps really good, and that was tough," Claeys said. "And here's all it came down to: It had nothing to do with Matt's abil- ity to coach or anything like that. It's that Coach had the offense set up to where there were basically two coor- dinators. I just didn't feel comfortable with that situation." Having served by himself as defen- sive coordinator under Kill, Claeys said he felt strongly that "when it comes game day, one guy's got to be in charge. That's my belief." Claeys added that having the offen- sive line coach double as offensive co- ordinator posed some difficulties. He said that line coaches "need to be down in the trenches with [their] guys. All the crap you're seeing on de- fense now with the slanting and blitz- ing and being there with those guys in battle and helping them through it, I think that's a key. "So it was more of a structural issue on offense, getting to where I was comfortable. [It was] not at all [about] Matt's coaching ability. In sixteen years, he's worked his ass off and given it everything he's got. He's a good football coach. I hated to see it end that way, but I just felt like to re- structure it, that's what was best." In December the Gophers hired Jay Johnson away from Louisiana to serve as offensive coordinator and quarter- backs coach. Claeys and Limegrover will face each other in October when Min- nesota travels to University Park for its Big Ten opener. Asked whether Limegrover's presence on the oppo- site sideline will add some intrigue to the game, Claeys said the matchup will be a tough one. "I think it being the opening Big Ten game of the year [lends] enough in- trigue to it," he said. "You never like to compete against friends, that's for sure, unless it's in a big game at the end of the year when you know you both had good seasons. "But we wish nothing but the best for Matt. He's a good person and he gave everything he had while he was at Minnesota." – N.B. Claeys on Limegrover: 'I hated to see it end that way'

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