MINNEAPOLIS — Jerry Kill hasn’t given himself much of a break since taking over as the new Gophers football coach.

“We’ve tried to load that calendar and not waste any time,” Kill said. “I certainly haven’t tried to cheat the university on time.”

Kill has had but one full evening of free time — some Sunday a while ago, he recalled — since he was hired in early December. Meeting with all the returning players took two weeks. Pitching high school prospects on Minnesota is a never-ending task. Meetings with donors and alumni and media are fit into the remaining blocks of time, as he pushes a relentless work ethic throughout the football facility and the athletics department.

In assessing the program he was hired to rebuild, the critical piece of the process became clear: Continuity. The Gophers haven’t had much of that in recent years, with plenty of shuffling on the staff of former head coach Tim Brewster during his four seasons. That followed a wholesale change from the Glen Mason regime to Brewster’s in 2007.

“Those kids have just seen changeover after changeover after changeover,” Kill said.

Stability is a familiar concept to Kill. As a head coach at Northern Illinois, Southern Illinois, Emporia State and Saginaw Valley State, he has collected assistant coaches and tried hard to keep a staff intact. Both of Kill’s coordinators have worked with him since the 1990s.

Kill said in an interview in his office Thursday with The Associated Press that if his players “see the same people” over the next five years then the Gophers have “got a good chance.”

Maintaining that consistency of philosophy and communication, even in the weight room or with academic support, is of utmost concern to Kill.

“I gave a lot of people their chance, and they maintained loyalty to me,” he said. “Some of them had a chance to leave, and we were able to keep them in there. We try to make our working conditions good, and we work together. I think probably we’ve been just a little bit lucky, but I think we’ve all liked the way we’ve worked our way up in the profession.