One year with a K-State football GM has made life ‘so much easier’ for Chris Klieman
There are certain things in life we simply can’t be without.
Chefs need sharp knives to prepare gourmet food. Influencers need social media to spread viral content. Kids need slang to sound cooler than their parents. And every college football coach needs a general manager to help navigate NIL, player retention and the transfer portal.
Chris Klieman figured that out firsthand last year when, after five seasons at Kansas State, he named Clint Brown as the team’s director of roster management.
“Clint made my life so much easier,” Klieman said.
Klieman shared those words last December as the Wildcats were preparing for a bowl game against Rutgers while they were also recruiting transfers for the 2025 season. It was the busiest time of year for everyone on K-State’s coaching staff, but it felt much less chaotic than usual with Brown taking point on all things roster management, just like the GM of an NFL team.
The changes were so drastic that Klieman can’t imagine going back to the old ways.
“Last year at this time, my head was spinning,” Klieman said. “We didn’t have Clint Brown here, and we were trying to do this without a director of roster management or a GM. ... We have a better handle on a lot of things right now.”
Indeed, Brown has quickly become an indispensable member of Klieman’s staff, on par with a recruiting director, strength coach or even a coordinator.
The same is happening elsewhere. Teams are beginning to spend big money on general managers. Notable schools like Notre Dame and Oklahoma both made high-profile GM hires this past offseason. And USC brought in Chad Bowden on a salary that is expected to top $1 million.
“I don’t value my job more than I do any other, because I have sat in those seats,” Brown said. “But they are all important. If we don’t play well on offense, Matt Wells gets drilled by everybody. If we don’t play well on defense, Joe Klanderman gets drilled by everybody. And if the guys that we’ve grabbed out of the portal or high school kids aren’t performing for us, then that’s on me.”
Brown took a fascinating path into the role of K-State football GM.
The Wildcats originally hired him as an analyst because he had experience as a defensive coordinator and position coach. They thought he would bring valuable knowledge and advice to the coaching offices. He did. But after a few years in that role, Brown had an itch to do something else. So he approached Klieman about taking over as a roster specialist.
“I felt like I could have a different impact on the program,” Brown said, “other than just sitting around and breaking down film of the opposing defense.”
At first, Klieman was skeptical. They talked about the possibility for an hour or so but he wasn’t sold on the idea. Then they met again and again and again. None of their conversations were short. But he came around eventually.
Brown won Klieman over with his confident approach. He was positive that he could help the Wildcats as a GM because of his experience managing scholarships as an NAIA and FCS coach. At those levels, he often retained and recruited players by offering partial scholarships. Some players would get 75%. Others would get 25%. The numbers were assigned based on talent, value and need.
That isn’t much different from the current era of major college football in which players can receive millions in NIL dollars and will soon participate in revenue sharing. Some players get a lavender Corvette. Others receive only a scholarship.
“I think that experience helped me,” Brown said, “because that’s kind of how I approached the NIL and revenue-sharing pieces. As a coordinator, I was in control of the recruiting budget, essentially, for my side of the ball. I had to manipulate the numbers to get what we wanted at certain positions. I feel like that has helped me quite a bit.”
So what has Brown done over the past year to make life for his head coach so much easier?
The easy answer is that he has taken many tasks off of Klieman’s plate. Two years ago, Klieman went on and on about how much time he spent on the phone talking with agents or how long he was in meetings with NIL experts.
In the offseason, normal pillars of his job like developing and recruiting felt like afterthoughts. It was overwhelming for an old school, defensive coach who worked his way up from North Dakota State.
Practice was his favorite time of day, because it gave him an excuse to put down his phone and focus on football.
Now, Brown is the one who loses sleep about those tasks. He says there are days when he is on the phone from 7 a.m. until midnight.
“Calling plays on game days was stressful,” Brown said. “But there have been times where I have woken up in the middle of night thinking, ‘We need to get this position out of the portal and our board is getting thin.’ It stresses me out thinking about it. Honestly, it’s about even.”
Brown has made things easier for himself, and others, over time by developing a grading system for transfer targets and players on the K-State roster.
Player retention is a huge priority for the Wildcats, so talking to the team is also important.
Last season, Brown said he sat down with close to 50 K-State players during the team’s final idle week to discuss their futures. More meetings were scheduled during bowl prep. By the end of the regular season, he had a great idea about how many Wildcats were looking to transfer and what it would take to keep certain players.
Keeping track of all that movement, and managing a budget that may exceed $14 million during the era of revenue sharing, has not been too much for him.
The hardest part of his job may be finding a way to trim K-State’s roster down to 105 players in the fall. Cutting walk-ons won’t be fun.
But taking the lead on that project will make life easier for his head coach. It’s all part of the new and important job he signed up for.
This story was originally published April 2, 2025 at 7:00 AM with the headline "One year with a K-State football GM has made life ‘so much easier’ for Chris Klieman."