Kansas State University Athletics
SE: K-State Football Starts Spring Period Eager to ‘Leverage’ Change into Growth
Mar 06, 2019 | Football, Sports Extra
By Corbin McGuire
K-State football's 2019 spring period starts Wednesday. So do the changes it will bring with first-year head coach Chris Klieman and his staff.
For everyone involved, it will be more than the beginning of not only a 15-practice spring period that ends with the K-State Football Spring Showcase on April 13.
More importantly, it will allow the start of a building process. Building relationships and trust. Building an understanding of the playbook on both sides of the ball. Building evaluations of talent and depth. Building great expectations.
"When there are changes, there are questions. But, to me, when there's change, there can be growth and there can be a ton of improvement. That's what I'm excited about," K-State offensive line coach Conor Riley said. "Just like anything in life, the change of winds can be very good at times. That's what we're going to try and leverage here."
The staff has plenty of change to leverage.
Of the 10 assistants, nine are brand new to the program, with Collin Klein being the exception. Even more, until now K-State's coaches have focused a large part of their time on recruiting and watching winter workouts when they can.
Spring practices will offer both players and coaches a chance to focus predominantly on the present and near future, specifically the 2019 season.
"I've been to a couple of runs and you kind of get the idea that we have some good athletes out there," defensive coordinator Scottie Hazelton said. "I'm excited to get in there with them more and get the chance to know them one-on-one so we can start to learn about each other."
Multiple Wildcat coaches said developing trust with their players is the starting point.
Some assistants, like Riley, who recruited some of K-State's offensive line while he was at North Dakota State, and even Klieman, who recruited K-State junior quarterback Skylar Thompson out of Independence, Missouri, have a slight head start in this regard. All have work to do, however.
"When you're working with young men, it's all about trust," defensive tackles coach Mike Tuiasosopo said. "They have to trust me that I'm going to continue to help them elevate their game. The old adage is people don't care about what you know until they know how much you care. That's just the way it is.
"Trust is built," he continued. "We just have to get to that place of trust, and that's getting to know each other, spending time with each other, but you want to build it to a place where it's third-and-10 and you have to win this down to win the game… I have to be able to trust you to get that done. That's the kind of level of trust that we have to have."
From there, new playbooks can be installed easier.
K-State, with seven returning starters on offense, will learn its new offensive system under coordinator Courtney Messingham, along with running backs coach Brian Anderson, wide receivers coach Jason Ray, Riley and Klein.
"I think the biggest thing right now is to get the guys to become comfortable," Anderson said. "We just want to learn the playbook as a whole and put together what we want to be offensively."
A veteran defensive staff, led by Hazelton, who's coming off his second season as Wyoming's defensive coordinator and his 23rd season coaching, overall, will ingrain new principals on that side of the ball. The rest of the defensive staff, which consists of safeties coach Joe Klanderman (17 years), defensive backs coach Van Malone (20), Tuiasosopo (27) and defensive ends coach Buddy Wyatt (28), brings, on average, more than two decades worth of coaching experience to the program.
On both sides of the ball, one collective expectation will be harped during spring ball: Playing hard.
Hazelton said it's been one of the three main staples of his defenses in the past, especially at Wyoming. His first season there ended with the Cowboys ranking No. 1 in the nation in takeaways, No. 9 in scoring defense (17.5 points per game), 13th in pass defense (174.9 yards per game) and 23rd in total defense (335.2 yards per game).
"You'd like to see guys playing as hard as they can — running to the football, scrapping, fighting off blocks, whatever they can to get to the ball — to where you would say, 'Look at how fast these guys are playing. It's like they know their job,'" he said. "And that's our job, to start teaching them what they're supposed to do, how we'd like them to do it. As we get into spring ball and get a ton of reps at it, they can slow the game down in their mind to where they can start thinking about what the offense is doing so they can play fast. And hopefully they're celebrating and having a great time."
Riley said constant and consistent effort was a foundational component to NDSU's run of four FCS titles in Klieman's five years as head coach.
"If I learned one thing, it's that if we have the ability to play harder than our opponent, we're going to have a pretty dang good shot to win some football games," Riley said. "Those are the things that, hopefully, we'll see on display as we go through spring football and get into the 2019 season."
K-State football's 2019 spring period starts Wednesday. So do the changes it will bring with first-year head coach Chris Klieman and his staff.
For everyone involved, it will be more than the beginning of not only a 15-practice spring period that ends with the K-State Football Spring Showcase on April 13.
More importantly, it will allow the start of a building process. Building relationships and trust. Building an understanding of the playbook on both sides of the ball. Building evaluations of talent and depth. Building great expectations.
"When there are changes, there are questions. But, to me, when there's change, there can be growth and there can be a ton of improvement. That's what I'm excited about," K-State offensive line coach Conor Riley said. "Just like anything in life, the change of winds can be very good at times. That's what we're going to try and leverage here."
The staff has plenty of change to leverage.
Of the 10 assistants, nine are brand new to the program, with Collin Klein being the exception. Even more, until now K-State's coaches have focused a large part of their time on recruiting and watching winter workouts when they can.
Spring practices will offer both players and coaches a chance to focus predominantly on the present and near future, specifically the 2019 season.
"I've been to a couple of runs and you kind of get the idea that we have some good athletes out there," defensive coordinator Scottie Hazelton said. "I'm excited to get in there with them more and get the chance to know them one-on-one so we can start to learn about each other."
Multiple Wildcat coaches said developing trust with their players is the starting point.
Some assistants, like Riley, who recruited some of K-State's offensive line while he was at North Dakota State, and even Klieman, who recruited K-State junior quarterback Skylar Thompson out of Independence, Missouri, have a slight head start in this regard. All have work to do, however.
"When you're working with young men, it's all about trust," defensive tackles coach Mike Tuiasosopo said. "They have to trust me that I'm going to continue to help them elevate their game. The old adage is people don't care about what you know until they know how much you care. That's just the way it is.
"Trust is built," he continued. "We just have to get to that place of trust, and that's getting to know each other, spending time with each other, but you want to build it to a place where it's third-and-10 and you have to win this down to win the game… I have to be able to trust you to get that done. That's the kind of level of trust that we have to have."
From there, new playbooks can be installed easier.
K-State, with seven returning starters on offense, will learn its new offensive system under coordinator Courtney Messingham, along with running backs coach Brian Anderson, wide receivers coach Jason Ray, Riley and Klein.
"I think the biggest thing right now is to get the guys to become comfortable," Anderson said. "We just want to learn the playbook as a whole and put together what we want to be offensively."
A veteran defensive staff, led by Hazelton, who's coming off his second season as Wyoming's defensive coordinator and his 23rd season coaching, overall, will ingrain new principals on that side of the ball. The rest of the defensive staff, which consists of safeties coach Joe Klanderman (17 years), defensive backs coach Van Malone (20), Tuiasosopo (27) and defensive ends coach Buddy Wyatt (28), brings, on average, more than two decades worth of coaching experience to the program.
On both sides of the ball, one collective expectation will be harped during spring ball: Playing hard.
Hazelton said it's been one of the three main staples of his defenses in the past, especially at Wyoming. His first season there ended with the Cowboys ranking No. 1 in the nation in takeaways, No. 9 in scoring defense (17.5 points per game), 13th in pass defense (174.9 yards per game) and 23rd in total defense (335.2 yards per game).
"You'd like to see guys playing as hard as they can — running to the football, scrapping, fighting off blocks, whatever they can to get to the ball — to where you would say, 'Look at how fast these guys are playing. It's like they know their job,'" he said. "And that's our job, to start teaching them what they're supposed to do, how we'd like them to do it. As we get into spring ball and get a ton of reps at it, they can slow the game down in their mind to where they can start thinking about what the offense is doing so they can play fast. And hopefully they're celebrating and having a great time."
Riley said constant and consistent effort was a foundational component to NDSU's run of four FCS titles in Klieman's five years as head coach.
"If I learned one thing, it's that if we have the ability to play harder than our opponent, we're going to have a pretty dang good shot to win some football games," Riley said. "Those are the things that, hopefully, we'll see on display as we go through spring football and get into the 2019 season."
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