4 exciting things and 3 other things about Kansas State’s Chris Klieman hire

Kansas State hired North Dakota State head coach Chris Klieman to replace the legendary Bill Snyder, who retired after leading the wildest turnaround in college football history.

The Klieman hire’s been met with different reactions. K-State blog Bring On The Cats says it’s drawn “a resounding swell of outrage from the Wildcat fanbase.” Some of that centers around K-State AD Gene Taylor having come from NDSU, where he worked in the same department as Klieman. Maybe, one thought goes, he just hired a friend.

Others have looked at NDSU’s success — as the Bison try to win their seventh FCS national championship in eight years — and been elated with good reason.

Exciting thing: Klieman presides over the most dominant team in all of college football and deserves credit.

Klieman didn’t lay the foundations for NDSU’s dynasty, at least not on his own. His first year on staff was 2011, when he was the defensive backs coach under Craig Bohl. That was the year NDSU started its mind-boggling run of six FCS titles in seven years.

But Klieman was the defensive coordinator for the second and third titles, and he’s been the head coach for the last three and an ongoing 2018 playoff run that might be NDSU’s best yet.

Given Bohl’s unprecedented success, a reasonable person could have expected Klieman to have a drop off. That hasn’t happened. He’s sustained NDSU as the program at the second-highest level of college football. Enough time has passed that no one can fairly accuse him of riding Bohl’s coattails.

Exciting thing: Klieman’s already running a program that has cooked Power 5 teams and would beat a handful of Big 12 squads.

NDSU is 20th in the Sagarin ratings, which might be analytics’ best attempt to stack up every team in Division I. That’s better than every Big 12 team except Oklahoma and West Virginia. I think Texas would beat NDSU, but it’s fair to think 2018 NDSU could compete against the whole non-Oklahoma Big 12.

In 2016, I spent some time thinking for fun about how NDSU might fare in the Big Ten West and decided the Bison would be solidly average. FBS teams have basically stopped scheduling the Bison out of fear and risk management, as NDSU’s beaten six in their stadiums since 2010. That list includes K-State itself.

This isn’t a one-for-one thing. It doesn’t mean the Wildcats will immediately be the third-best team in the Big 12. But it should go at least some distance toward quelling concerns about Klieman jumping from an elite FCS conference to a Power 5 league.

Another thing: Recent head coaches to go from FCS to Power 5 jobs have had a wide range of outcomes.

• Paul Wulff did badly after jumping from Eastern Washington to nearby Washington State.
• Mike London was OK by Virginia standards, after coming from Richmond. He never did break through, though, and eventually got fired before going back to FCS.
• Bobby Johnson had a similar arc at Vanderbilt, struggling in a difficult job.
• But Jim Tressel became a national champ after leaving Youngstown State for Ohio State.
• Jim Harbaugh became Jim Harbaugh after going from San Diego to Stanford.

None of those coaches had been running an otherworldly dominant program. But here’s one who was:

• Lance Leipold, who won six Division III national titles, is currently leading Buffalo to its best season ever. Jumping from non-scholarship DIII to the MAC is a significantly bigger jump than going from arguably the best non-FBS conference to a decent Power 5 league.

Exciting thing: Kansas State’s kind of a similar job to NDSU, in that both programs have to recruit through difficult geography.

There are usually no blue-chip prospects in the Dakotas. There are almost none in Kansas. When both have won, they’ve done it with player development, a scheme that works for them, and an ability to identify under-recruited talent. Klieman’s done that in Fargo.

Another thing: In some ways, NDSU’s a way easier job than Kansas State, especially in recruiting.

This one’s partially about geography and partially about stature.

While the Dakotas don’t have a ton of high school talent, they also don’t have a lot of college teams. There’s no FBS team in either state, and only one in Minnesota. For many of the area’s best players, the Bison really are the dream offer.

Alternatively, Kansas State has to try to recruit against dozens of power programs.

NDSU is well resourced for an FCS program and now signs classes ranked near the top of its level. That’s somewhat a product of its success; what six-time national champ won’t out-recruit its competition? Kansas State, alternatively, usually recruits near the bottom of the Power 5.

So while no one should assume Klieman can’t improve the Cats’ recruiting, it’s not a slam dunk.

Another thing: Klieman’s going to coach NDSU through its current playoff run, which is probably running through the Early Signing Period.

That’ll be true as long as NDSU beats SDSU, which it always does in the playoffs. Kansas State currently has the 94th-ranked 2019 class.

Time’s short for Klieman to build relationships in places he hasn’t needed to tap much at NDSU, like Texas and Oklahoma. There’s not a single Texan or Oklahoman on the Bison’s roster, in fact.

However, you could argue adding yet another national title to his resume could pay long-term recruiting dividends that’d make up for some delayed greetings.

Exciting thing: Kansas State is replacing a legend with someone who has a real track record as a head coach.

K-State replaced Snyder once before, when he retired after 2005. The school went with Ron Prince, whose most recent resume line was helming a UVA offense that finished 53rd in yards per play. Snyder was back three years later. If any Cats fans are jaded because of how the school messed up the last succession plan, that’s fair.

But Klieman’s a different hire. There are fair questions about how his success will carry over, but that’s the case with literally any hire anywhere. Don’t obsess over the name of the level in which North Dakota State plays.