Ask the A.D. Transcript - Taylor Reflects on Football Search

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In a special edition of Ask the AD, Gene Taylor offers his first public comments following the hiring of NCAA FCS Championship head coach Chris Klieman as the new leader of the K-State football program in a chat with the Wildcats' Director of Sportscasting and Video Services Brian Smoller.

BS: This hire has been something you knew was coming since the moment you took the job, tell us a little about the process, I'm sure there's some relief that it's over. How did it all come about?
GT: It's kind of a little bit of everything - it's exciting. To replace a legend like Coach Snyder is (difficult), you don't want to put too much pressure on yourself or the process because you want to make sure that you focus on the candidates and what you're looking for. It's exciting. I got a chance - myself and Kenny Lannou and Jill Shields were a part of the process - got to meet some great coaches as well the Nike reps out in New York City where we did most of the interviews. We were in a target rich environment with all the coaches out there for the National Football Foundation. It was stressful. We wanted to do it in a timely fashion, very quickly with the national signing date. That added some new pressure than other searches in the past. It was all of it, exhilarating. We learned a lot from other coaches - a lot about football and what they believed in and who they were as people. It was a fun process, it really was.

BS: You obviously have some history with Coach Klieman from North Dakota State and understand the magnitude of this hire, what made it the right fit?
GT: I've known Chris obviously. I hired him before I left North Dakota State when Craig Bohl left to go to Wyoming, he was one of the candidates I looked at as our defensive coordinator. I never really had a chance to work with him as a head coach (before the NDSU hire), but I knew the pressure he was facing that first year - they lost 25 seniors, everybody at North Dakota State and in Fargo expected them to just waltz back to the National Championship and he didn't really have all the pieces. Then the quarterback that he had, obviously, was very good, but got hurt for most of the season. Just watching him manage that pressure told me a lot about him and as he continued to grow the program and take it to three National Championships on his own, I said 'OK, this guy can coach football.' I've watched him coach, I've watched his teams play, they don't beat themselves. They're very defensive minded but yet they score some points. There's a lot of things about him, and just his culture and character, I knew that personally. Once I got here and felt the culture and what Kansas State was about and what Kansas State football was about, I saw there were a lot of similarities and I knew he'd be a great fit personally - his family is awesome and they're going to be great in the community. He's going to be the kind of coach that our fans will gravitate towards, he's got a lot of energy, a lot of passion. His football teams will be prepared and they will be prepared all the way through the fourth quarter. That's one thing, every time I've seen a North Dakota State team - and I was at Iowa across the aisle from them and they came and took us apart in the fourth quarter when I was at Iowa. They're a very, very prepared football team and that's what we're going to get here.

BS: Because of the timing and wanting to give Coach Snyder his due time and start the search the right way, there were a lot of media reports throughout the process, were any of those reports accurate?
GT: There was some of it, but there was a lot of inaccuracies too. One thing when you have a job as athletic director is you have a lot of advisors - you get a lot of advice from a lot of people. I got a lot of advice via email and twitter during the process, some of it was reacting to inaccuracies and some of it was reacting to those things that were accurate. It was probably about 50 percent, which I always find interesting how that gets out there. We were pretty much holed up in New York City and it's pretty easy to get lost in New York City with most of the candidates. We didn't do a lot of flying around, we were able to get everybody there, so I was a little surprised how some of that gets out, but you have agents and agents talk and they're trying to get their candidate put out there. There was some of it that was true, some of the candidates were accurate and some weren't. Some of the reasons candidates fell off weren't accurate at all. Those things you just kind of have to ignore and stay focused on the process. That's really important to stay focused on the candidates you are talking to because when the stuff that's out there that's not accurate (gets around) it messes up those candidates that you're talking to because then they get nervous - are you talking to so and so, am I still part of the deal. That's when the search firm really comes in handy because they keep those candidates involved that you want to stay involved as you begin to pare it down.

BS: As we get into the details over the next few days, were there any stipulations put on Coach Klieman or any of the candidates for that matter about the current coaching staff retention?
GT: No there's not. As you go through this process, we have some really great assistants. All we told every candidate is look, we have some great staff. We encourage you to interview as many or all of them, whatever you feel your needs are, because obviously they have coaches they're familiar with and coaches that they've coached with or people they've worked with that are maybe at other institutions. But we never want to say you have to hire somebody, that puts that coach in a bad position and puts the assistants in a bad position if you think about it because they only want to work if they're wanted too. We did tell them here are our staff that we think would be great additions if you wanted to keep them but that's up to you as the head coach. There was never a stipulation on any, whether it was Coach Klieman or any of our candidates, and there were never any real financial issues. They knew exactly what the contract was going to be and those that were interested knew what our parameters were. People take jobs and don't get jobs for a lot of different reasons.

BS: How soon do you expect the new staff to be put together?
GT: As quickly as possible, again with recruiting. We're going to bring Coach Klieman in the next couple of days. He is going to coach through the playoffs. If they should win against South Dakota State in the semifinal he'll coach through the National Championship. He'll balance that with being here as well and that's going to be important. I think people need to understand that. We're going to get him to come in, he's going to come in after the semifinal game and get in to see recruits and call people and start working on his staff. I would imagine he's going to have some of his staff put together fairly quickly and some will maybe take a little bit longer.

BS: What has been the response from donors and fans since the announcement?
GT: Since the announcement it's been very very positive. I'm sure there's still folks who are not sure about Chris' qualifications and I would tell anybody to not worry about that because you mentioned his record. What's really really hard to do, no matter what level you coach, is to win a National Championship, to win one. He's been a part of six out of seven as a defensive coordinator and head coach and has a chance to win his fourth - that's extremely difficult to do. The playoff run each week, to prepare for a different team, is extremely challenging. I think our fans need to understand that we're getting an extremely qualified, well-seasoned coach that believes in winning and winning the right way and likes to win - that's what we're going to get. I think the negative reaction is they just don't understand the FCS level, they don't understand the quality of athletes at that level, they don't understand the quality of coaches at that level and just need a chance to get to know Chris. The majority of the stuff that I've seen since the announcement has been very, very positive, nationally in particular.

BS: What would you like to say to fans after this announcement?
GT: I love our passion. I love our fan base. Yes, sometimes I'll get twitter messages that are mad at me or email messages. The one thing that I will ask our fans, because I think they care about our program in general, we're typically not a nasty fan base or a really mean fan base - they're passionate and they care and they want to be successful - I just ask you to have patience and give Coach a chance. Let him build a staff, let him come in here and get to know the team and recruit before we overreact and be negative before there's a chance to show. Maybe there's some initial reactions that are a knee jerk and then all of the sudden well maybe, and that's how I've gotten some of the emails to be honest with you. That's what I ask all of you guys, just have patience. You're going to find out he's a tremendous person, he's a tremendous family man, he's got a tremendous amount of character. He's going to treat our student-athletes with the utmost respect. They're going to play hard for him and we're going to win football games under Coach Klieman's leadership.

He'll be a tremendous community member and I think people, once they get a chance to meet him, will like him very quickly.

BS: He has experience replacing a legend, doing so at North Dakota State with Craig Bohl. He took a great program and took it to legendary status, hopefully looking for him to do the same thing here.
GT: I saw a quote once that said it's one thing to take a bad team to good, it's another thing to take a good team to greatness and that's what he's done at North Dakota State.

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Ask the A.D. Transcript - Taylor Reflects on Football Search

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