Kansas State Football: Chris Klieman takes Wildcats bowling in year one

MANHATTAN, KS - OCTOBER 1: Detail view of a Kansas State Wildcats football helmet being held in the air before the game against the Baylor Bears at Bill Snyder Family Football Stadium on October 1, 2011 in Manhattan, Kansas. The Wildcats won 36-35. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images) /

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Kansas State football head coach Chris Klieman (Photo by George Walker/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) /

It’s a year of change in Manhattan, as the Kansas State football program replaced legendary head coach Bill Snyder, who retired at the end of the 2018 season. The Wildcats look to rebound under their new head coach.

It’s official this time: Bill Snyder has retired. Again. And again, the Kansas State Wildcats have replaced him with Ron Prince. The last time–

Oh, wait a minute. I’m sorry. I’m being told that Kansas State did not re-hire Ron Prince, who coached the Wildcats from 2006-2008, the first time that Snyder retired, even though that would have been hilarious. Prince, for what it’s worth, was hired in December as the new head coach of Howard, his seventh stop since replacing and later being replaced by Snyder.

This time, the Kansas State Wildcats went with a proven head coach to replace Snyder, who coached the Wildcats for a cumulative 27 years, from 1986-2005 and 2009-2018. The new coach is Chris Klieman, previously the head coach at North Dakota State for five seasons that included four FCS National Championships, which is tied for the most all-time with Jim Tressel.

Here’s to Klieman having a better tenure in Manhattan that Tressel had in Columbus.

Klieman, who had previously been the Bisons defensive coordinator before getting promoted to replace Craig Bohl (Wyoming) as head coach in 2014, seems like the perfect fit for the next chapter in Kansas State football. Besides Snyder, no coach has had success with the Wildcats. Klieman looks to change that.

And he should do it, getting the Wildcats to their first bowl game in two seasons, and what would be the school’s ninth bowl game in the past 10 seasons.

Like I’ve done with Mizzou, Nebraska, and Kansas, for the rest of the article I’ll go through how I see each Wildcat game playing out, broken down by month. On the last page I’ll also chart how I see the Big 12 concluding, including what two teams will play in the conference championship and what teams are at the bottom.

Let’s do it.

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