Collin Klein explains why he stayed at Kansas State after Notre Dame job interview
Collin Klein was one of the hottest names on the coordinator market this offseason.
After he guided Kansas State to 32.3 points and 418.8 yards per game during his first year in charge of the Wildcats’ offense last season several prominent teams called to see if he might be willing to starting over as an offensive coordinator elsewhere. Sources have said that Alabama and Texas A&M showed interest before Notre Dame publicly courted him in February.
Klein, a former K-State quarterback, had opportunities to leave his alma mater for bigger schools and more money but decided to remain in Manhattan.
He explained why for the first time during a news conference on Wednesday.
“It was a obviously a tremendous honor when I get that phone call (from Notre Dame),” Klein said, “but I felt like after going through the process that the Lord really put it on my heart that there was still work to do here. My players and knowing that my mission here isn’t done with my guys were really the two things that made me at peace with knowing that I’m supposed to be here.”
The Wildcats are working to reward Klein with a new contract and raise that will significantly increase his previous salary of $600,000, though no deal has been finalized with signatures at this point.
But he didn’t stay with K-State for those perks.
Bottom line: he thinks this group could be special with Will Howard returning at quarterback behind a veteran offensive line.
“At this time last year we were trying to really build and re-establish some things and strengthen our foundation offensively of how we wanted to do things,” Klein said. “So being able to kind of build on that now that everyone’s not learning how to operate, how to communicate and all those things, we can continue to push into those second and third and fourth levels of how we want to do things. It’s an unbelievable group to work with.”
K-State running backs coach Brian Anderson was happy when Klein decided to stay.
When the Wildcats had down time after the Sugar Bowl, assistant coaches went back and analyzed every play from the 2022 season. What they saw was many plays that could have easily resulted in touchdowns with minor changes here and there.
K-State maxed out at 48 points in games last season. At the time, no one was complaining about flirting with 50 points. But Anderson noticed that Klein seemed annoyed by that statistic when they scouted themselves.
Everyone will be aiming for more with Klein back in the driver’s seat next season.
“We left a lot of plays out there,” Anderson said. “There were a lot of opportunities and we missed on some things that we can handle. If we shore a few things up we can hit that 50-point mark. ... If we get those things corrected, the sky is the limit for this offense. With Coach Klein, I’m sure he wants 80 points.”
This story was originally published March 29, 2023 at 4:08 PM with the headline "Collin Klein explains why he stayed at Kansas State after Notre Dame job interview."