Chris Klieman beat K-State as a player and coordinator before he was named head coach
Even young Kansas State football fans probably remember the last time Chris Klieman visited Manhattan. He was North Dakota State’s defensive coordinator when the Bison upset the Wildcats 24-21 in the opening game of the 2013 season.
But only older, and truly loyal, K-State fans can likely recall his first trip to the Little Apple. That occurred many years earlier: in 1989, when he was a junior defensive back at Northern Iowa. His team won that game, too, defeating the Wildcats 10-8 in Bill Snyder’s first season as coach.
Nearly 30 years have passed since that now fateful game, which featured the most successful football coach in K-State history on one side and his successor on the other, yet it will never be forgotten by those involved. It was Northern Iowa’s first victory of the Terry Allen era, and it sparked a long run of winning seasons for the Panthers.
“Later that year was the first time that we were able to sellout the dome at Northern Iowa,” Allen said by phone Tuesday. “I was walking out onto the field beforehand with our captains, and Chris was one of them. We both just kind of looked around and saw 20,000 people stuffed into a place that only held 16,000. It was pretty special. Now he coaches in front of crowds like that all the time and they are only going to get bigger at Kansas State. He makes things pretty special everywhere he goes.”
Allen has a unique perspective to provide when it comes to Klieman.
Klieman used to play for him at Northern Iowa and later coached under him as a graduate assistant. Allen also made the same jump that Klieman is attempting to make, going from a FCS school to a power conference, when he went from Northern Iowa to Kansas.
The challenge was too great for Allen. After a 75-26 run at Northern Iowa, he never won more than five games in a season and finished 21-35 with the Jayhawks. His lone win against Snyder remains in 1989. But he thinks Klieman is better equipped to coach at the highest levels.
He illustrates that point with North Dakota State’s recent success against FBS opponents. The Bison have won their past six games against those teams going back to 2010. During that time, they have defeated Iowa, Iowa State, K-State, Colorado State, Minnesota and Kansas.
“North Dakota State is a FCS team, but they compete at a FBS level,” Allen said. “They know what they are doing. The caliber of the competition they have played, there is not that big of a difference. Sure, there is a difference in the people in the stands but, on the field, it’s not the quantum leap people make it out to be.”
When Allen was at Northern Iowa, his teams were successful. But they were never dominant like North Dakota State, which is currently the top seed in the FCS playoffs and off to a 13-0 start.
“It’s a transition I think he is very well prepared for,” Allen said, “because he has been at a place where success just breeds success.”
He also thinks Klieman is a good fit for K-State.
A former defensive back, Klieman has always coached teams with strong defenses. The Bison held opponents to 11.1 points and 278.8 yards per game this season. Allen says his teams have the ability to create pressure on opposing quarterbacks without blitzing or dropping into straight man coverage.
And his offense, which is averaging 274.2 rushing yards and 185.8 passing yards this season, should look familiar to K-State fans.
“The thing that probably attracted Gene Taylor to Chris was the things they do offensively at North Dakota State are really a hybrid of what Coach Snyder has had so much success with at Kansas State,” Allen said. “The Big 12 is known for all the different wide open things that we see offensively. But that is very similar to what it is like in the Missouri Valley.”
“Because of the approach North Dakota State takes on offense, they win a lot of games because they run the ball and play great defense. It fits the mold of what the people at K-State have done for years.”
Klieman seems poised to embrace the best parts of Snyder’s system and add to it in his own way.
He is not afraid to follow a legend.
“Obviously, I had a chance to play against Kansas State when he was there,” Klieman said Monday on his radio show in Fargo, N.D. “He was head coach when I was a player. I also competed against him when I was a defensive coordinator here. I’m so excited for the opportunity to follow in his footsteps. His legacy will continue to live on. I’m going to continue to try to build on that legacy that he’s laid the foundation for me, and I’m excited.”
His former coach has no doubt he will succeed at K-State.
“He is a perfect fit for what they do offensively and the type of person that Chris is,” Allen said. “He really is a younger version of all the great things that Coach Snyder was and is.”
This story was originally published December 11, 2018 at 4:36 PM with the headline "Chris Klieman beat K-State as a player and coordinator before he was named head coach."