Klieman’s Excitement for 2022 Visible on Catbacker Tour
May 24, 2022 | Football, Sports Extra
By: D. Scott Fritchen
From Salina on Tuesday to Garden City on Thursday, the Kansas State Catbacker Tour hit eight stops across the western part of the state this past week, as select student-athletes and coaches discussed the past season and looked ahead to summer and the next season.
In one breath, K-State head coach Chris Klieman, who attended all eight Catbacker events, praised the football team coming off its dominant 42-20 victory over LSU in the 2022 TaxAct Texas Bowl, and in the next breath discussed the potential for the Wildcats heading toward next fall.
"I'm excited about this group," Klieman said.
Perhaps for good reason. The Wildcats return 16 starters and 10 players that earned All-Big 12 honors last season. The Wildcats also brought in five Division I transfers for spring practice that have combined for 150 total games and 81 career starts. That includes quarterback Adrian Martinez, the record-setter from Nebraska, who needed only the final two practices of the spring to start turning the heads of coaches and teammates.
Here are 10 notable things that Klieman shared with K-State fans on the Catbacker Tour:
Bowl victory opens door for "special group" next fall
"It was really special, and those kids weren't going to be denied. It was probably one of our best performances of the year. It was a complete win. Our guys were so focused. I knew the last few days of practice in Houston that these guys weren't going to be denied and they were going to go out with a big W. It was fun to do it the way they did it. We dominated from start to finish. I don't care what players LSU didn't have. When you walked out of that tunnel, they had some dudes over there. Our guys took care of them. It was a total team win.
"I'm excited about this group. We have a lot of guys returning on both sides of the ball. There's great anticipation. More importantly, we have great people in that locker room to lead. This is probably as good a group of leaders collectively as we've had. We have a collective group of leaders in that locker room. It's a special group."
Program continues to build heading into fourth season of Klieman era
"It does take time. We had the COVID issue there, and it really ravaged us and made us reset our core values. We have four core values that you see all over the Vanier facility. Eighteen- to 22-years-olds have bought into that. We came back in January 2021. We still were battling COVID. Shoot, we were battling COVID all the way until the day we played LSU in the bowl game. Those kids just had an unbelievable belief.
"Our locker room is as strong as it's ever been, and that's a credit to those guys. I've been doing this for a while and have been a part of a lot of successful teams and never been a part of a successful team with a bunch of in the locker room who were not fully committed toward helping us achieve success. The ones that are the best take care of everything. We're building on it. We have a lot of terrific guys."
Collin Klein "hit a home run" during bowl prep and leads "a little bit different" offense into next season
"He was on point in that bowl prep. He and I talked at length an awful lot when he was the interim offensive coordinator for that month, and I was rooting for him. I know a lot of people were rooting for him because how do you not love Collin Klein? He galvanized the football team. He had that offense clicking and the way he was leading and commanded the room, we came out and we were aggressive, and we knew we were going to be aggressive, and he and I talked about that those two weeks leading up to the game. Just to build off it in the spring, some of the guys who are on offense will tell you it's going to be a little bit different than what you've been used to. Some of that we did in the bowl game, but it's not even close to where we were in the spring. We have so many offensive players returning that is fun. Those guys had a blast in the spring.
"We spent a lot of time talking philosophy and some of his beliefs and my beliefs. I knew he was the right fit, but I wanted to see how he led and how the guys would respond, and he hit a home run that bowl prep. We played really, really well. It was a simple deal after that. I had one note, one quick note, saying, 'He's the guy.' It was from Coach Snyder. We had just returned from the bowl game. I'd already told Collin that he was our guy.
"He is special. He's in the Ring of Honor now. How awesome is that? He deserved offensive coordinator, he earned it, and it wasn't handed to him. He and I had a conversation and I said, 'I want to see you operate over the month of December,' and he hit a home run. He galvanized the football team. He was a great leader. He motivated and had a great plan. He was very decisive in his play-calling.
"I was just on the phone with him for about 20 minutes. He's all over the country working on the 2023-24 quarterback board, and he and I were talking at length. Then we started talking about summer captains' practices. He's so excited to have an opportunity to do this for a full year."
Deuce Vaughn shows "you can come to Kansas State and do special things"
"There's nothing the kid can't do. He's as good a kid as he is a football player. He's become a really good leader. He practices as hard as anybody. He just lays it on the line every time. He's in the weight room more and watching film, and he's a great role model for young guys that you can go to Kansas State and be something special. You can come to Kansas State, and you can get all the accolades. You can come to Kansas State and do special things. He's doing it."
Transfer quarterback Adrian Martinez "really has a special ability and special talent"
"The quarterback position is going well. Will Howard was the heir apparent. He's getting better. I feel bad for Will because he got trust into a position in 2020 that no kid should be thrust into at 17 years old. You can tell how much better he's getting. We were able to get Adrian Martinez to come. Adrian missed almost all the spring with a shoulder injury. He practiced two times at the end of spring, and there were some special throws he made and some athletic moves. When he came to our place, he said, 'I don't want to do this myself, and that's one of the reasons I'm looking at Kansas State. I have a bunch of guys on offense that can help me.' I'm excited to see where he can go as he continues to learn what we're doing in Collin's offense.
"He's a special talent and has started an awful lot of football games. He came in and just wanted to learn what we were doing. He's done a phenomenal job. I salute Will Howard, Jaren Lewis and Jake Rubley for taking him under their wing and teaching him what we're doing the K-State way. There's no jealousy. Everyone wants to win. We saw a couple practices where Adrian really has a special ability and special talent to run the football as well as throw it. Now we just need to apply everything that he's learned through the summer and into fall camp to make sure we can get him up to speed.
"What he didn't have at Nebraska was a kid named Deuce Vaughn. That is going to be fun as well as we have some really good receivers, and everybody is coming back. I'm excited about the amount of people who can make plays around him."
Offensive line is solid with the return of Taylor Poitier and infusion of young talent
"Taylor Poitier might've been our best offensive lineman last year, but he lost his year to an ACL. He's a load in there. We get him back, which is really good. I'm excited for a couple young freshmen. Hadley Panzer is going to be a really good player. Andrew Leingang is a tackle for us. We're counting on Hayden Gillum and KT Leveston. We have some guys there. Cooper Beebe is leading it. We have some really good players there."
The Wildcats should be loaded with a bevy of offensive playmakers next fall
"You get it into some of these guys' hands and get it to them quickly and move the ball along the perimeter, I think we have a chance to be pretty successful on offense. The fun thing is what Collin is going to do with the guys. We can get the ball to Phillip Brooks and Malik (Knowles) in different fashions. That'll really be dangerous. Those guys are great guys on the edge. Then if you have a kid like Adrian Martinez who can run as well, it makes us really difficult to defend. You'll see some different things like you saw in the bowl game offensively. I think it's going to be a fun offense to watch.
"I think Phillip is one the most underrated receivers in college football. He was First Team All-American as a return specialist, but he's a dynamite receiver. I'm excited because he causes so many mismatches in the slot, and then you put Deuce Vaughn in the other slot, and now you've got to make choices. And then you've got Malik Knowles and Kade Warner on the outside. It's going to be a lot of fun for Coach Klein."
Defensive line should be a strength next year
"We didn't have many healthy guys in the spring. We lost six guys in the defensive line that had season-ending surgery heading into the spring. We didn't end our season until January 4, but they'll all be back by June 1. I feel really good. We have strength in the unit on the defensive line. We have a really good inside linebacker in Daniel Green, who I feel like is primed to have an All-American type year.
"The strength of our football team is our defensive line. We can go eight or nine deep there with talented players just to keep them fresh and keep rotating them. We get Eli Huggins back, and we think he's the best defensive tackle in the league. He came back for a sixth year. Felix Anudike-Uzomah is a really special player. The guy who's unsung is Khalid Duke, who is a hybrid defensive end or linebacker, and might be one of the most explosive defensive linemen in the Big 12. He missed all but two games last year. You throw in Nate Matlack and Jaylen Pickle, and we have a lot of depth there.
"We have two really good cornerbacks in Ekow Boye-Doe and Julius Brents. Safety is where we lost a lot of guys. We lost Russ Yeast, who was drafted, and Jahron McPherson had a great career. Ross Elder was the glue back there. That's probably where we have the most new guys is in the secondary. Coach Joe Klanderman, myself and Coach Van Malone have our work cut out for us this summer and fall, but we have the right kind of guys and we're excited about that. As we continue into the summer and fall, it's just putting everyone together. We brought three kids in at semester and added another three guys in the secondary just this last month. It's going to be a work in progress in the secondary. There's competition and competitiveness."
Special teams return virtually everybody across the board
"Special teams are how we win football games at Kansas State. In our return game, we've had a number of kick returns and punt returns over the past few years. We've blocked a number of punts. We've been great in the kicking game. We've been great covering the field on kickoffs and punts. If you're not careful, you can take it for granted. We have our kicker back, our long snapper back, our punter back and holder back. That's a comfort for us knowing that we have experienced guys back there. Those guys work as hard as any players we have."
Excitement builds for Golden Cats graduation ceremonies
"This was our first real offseason where it wasn't COVID. What we do for a senior party is we bring all the 18 seniors back and ask all the former players to come back and we honor the seniors in front of the former players, and we welcome those kids into the Golden Cats. We had this thing up to 500 former players at North Dakota State. We had 50 here a month ago. Those guys promised me we'd get 250 next year and probably 500 in another year.
"You're honoring the people who've done it before you. It's about honoring the guys who laid the foundation. We've got the greatest facilities because of Coach Snyder and the foundation that was laid with all those players. Let's honor those guys, bring them back and celebrate them."
From Salina on Tuesday to Garden City on Thursday, the Kansas State Catbacker Tour hit eight stops across the western part of the state this past week, as select student-athletes and coaches discussed the past season and looked ahead to summer and the next season.
In one breath, K-State head coach Chris Klieman, who attended all eight Catbacker events, praised the football team coming off its dominant 42-20 victory over LSU in the 2022 TaxAct Texas Bowl, and in the next breath discussed the potential for the Wildcats heading toward next fall.
"I'm excited about this group," Klieman said.
Perhaps for good reason. The Wildcats return 16 starters and 10 players that earned All-Big 12 honors last season. The Wildcats also brought in five Division I transfers for spring practice that have combined for 150 total games and 81 career starts. That includes quarterback Adrian Martinez, the record-setter from Nebraska, who needed only the final two practices of the spring to start turning the heads of coaches and teammates.
Here are 10 notable things that Klieman shared with K-State fans on the Catbacker Tour:
Bowl victory opens door for "special group" next fall
"It was really special, and those kids weren't going to be denied. It was probably one of our best performances of the year. It was a complete win. Our guys were so focused. I knew the last few days of practice in Houston that these guys weren't going to be denied and they were going to go out with a big W. It was fun to do it the way they did it. We dominated from start to finish. I don't care what players LSU didn't have. When you walked out of that tunnel, they had some dudes over there. Our guys took care of them. It was a total team win.
"I'm excited about this group. We have a lot of guys returning on both sides of the ball. There's great anticipation. More importantly, we have great people in that locker room to lead. This is probably as good a group of leaders collectively as we've had. We have a collective group of leaders in that locker room. It's a special group."
Program continues to build heading into fourth season of Klieman era
"It does take time. We had the COVID issue there, and it really ravaged us and made us reset our core values. We have four core values that you see all over the Vanier facility. Eighteen- to 22-years-olds have bought into that. We came back in January 2021. We still were battling COVID. Shoot, we were battling COVID all the way until the day we played LSU in the bowl game. Those kids just had an unbelievable belief.
"Our locker room is as strong as it's ever been, and that's a credit to those guys. I've been doing this for a while and have been a part of a lot of successful teams and never been a part of a successful team with a bunch of in the locker room who were not fully committed toward helping us achieve success. The ones that are the best take care of everything. We're building on it. We have a lot of terrific guys."
Collin Klein "hit a home run" during bowl prep and leads "a little bit different" offense into next season
"He was on point in that bowl prep. He and I talked at length an awful lot when he was the interim offensive coordinator for that month, and I was rooting for him. I know a lot of people were rooting for him because how do you not love Collin Klein? He galvanized the football team. He had that offense clicking and the way he was leading and commanded the room, we came out and we were aggressive, and we knew we were going to be aggressive, and he and I talked about that those two weeks leading up to the game. Just to build off it in the spring, some of the guys who are on offense will tell you it's going to be a little bit different than what you've been used to. Some of that we did in the bowl game, but it's not even close to where we were in the spring. We have so many offensive players returning that is fun. Those guys had a blast in the spring.
"We spent a lot of time talking philosophy and some of his beliefs and my beliefs. I knew he was the right fit, but I wanted to see how he led and how the guys would respond, and he hit a home run that bowl prep. We played really, really well. It was a simple deal after that. I had one note, one quick note, saying, 'He's the guy.' It was from Coach Snyder. We had just returned from the bowl game. I'd already told Collin that he was our guy.
"He is special. He's in the Ring of Honor now. How awesome is that? He deserved offensive coordinator, he earned it, and it wasn't handed to him. He and I had a conversation and I said, 'I want to see you operate over the month of December,' and he hit a home run. He galvanized the football team. He was a great leader. He motivated and had a great plan. He was very decisive in his play-calling.
"I was just on the phone with him for about 20 minutes. He's all over the country working on the 2023-24 quarterback board, and he and I were talking at length. Then we started talking about summer captains' practices. He's so excited to have an opportunity to do this for a full year."
Deuce Vaughn shows "you can come to Kansas State and do special things"
"There's nothing the kid can't do. He's as good a kid as he is a football player. He's become a really good leader. He practices as hard as anybody. He just lays it on the line every time. He's in the weight room more and watching film, and he's a great role model for young guys that you can go to Kansas State and be something special. You can come to Kansas State, and you can get all the accolades. You can come to Kansas State and do special things. He's doing it."
Transfer quarterback Adrian Martinez "really has a special ability and special talent"
"The quarterback position is going well. Will Howard was the heir apparent. He's getting better. I feel bad for Will because he got trust into a position in 2020 that no kid should be thrust into at 17 years old. You can tell how much better he's getting. We were able to get Adrian Martinez to come. Adrian missed almost all the spring with a shoulder injury. He practiced two times at the end of spring, and there were some special throws he made and some athletic moves. When he came to our place, he said, 'I don't want to do this myself, and that's one of the reasons I'm looking at Kansas State. I have a bunch of guys on offense that can help me.' I'm excited to see where he can go as he continues to learn what we're doing in Collin's offense.
"He's a special talent and has started an awful lot of football games. He came in and just wanted to learn what we were doing. He's done a phenomenal job. I salute Will Howard, Jaren Lewis and Jake Rubley for taking him under their wing and teaching him what we're doing the K-State way. There's no jealousy. Everyone wants to win. We saw a couple practices where Adrian really has a special ability and special talent to run the football as well as throw it. Now we just need to apply everything that he's learned through the summer and into fall camp to make sure we can get him up to speed.
"What he didn't have at Nebraska was a kid named Deuce Vaughn. That is going to be fun as well as we have some really good receivers, and everybody is coming back. I'm excited about the amount of people who can make plays around him."
Offensive line is solid with the return of Taylor Poitier and infusion of young talent
"Taylor Poitier might've been our best offensive lineman last year, but he lost his year to an ACL. He's a load in there. We get him back, which is really good. I'm excited for a couple young freshmen. Hadley Panzer is going to be a really good player. Andrew Leingang is a tackle for us. We're counting on Hayden Gillum and KT Leveston. We have some guys there. Cooper Beebe is leading it. We have some really good players there."
The Wildcats should be loaded with a bevy of offensive playmakers next fall
"You get it into some of these guys' hands and get it to them quickly and move the ball along the perimeter, I think we have a chance to be pretty successful on offense. The fun thing is what Collin is going to do with the guys. We can get the ball to Phillip Brooks and Malik (Knowles) in different fashions. That'll really be dangerous. Those guys are great guys on the edge. Then if you have a kid like Adrian Martinez who can run as well, it makes us really difficult to defend. You'll see some different things like you saw in the bowl game offensively. I think it's going to be a fun offense to watch.
"I think Phillip is one the most underrated receivers in college football. He was First Team All-American as a return specialist, but he's a dynamite receiver. I'm excited because he causes so many mismatches in the slot, and then you put Deuce Vaughn in the other slot, and now you've got to make choices. And then you've got Malik Knowles and Kade Warner on the outside. It's going to be a lot of fun for Coach Klein."
Defensive line should be a strength next year
"We didn't have many healthy guys in the spring. We lost six guys in the defensive line that had season-ending surgery heading into the spring. We didn't end our season until January 4, but they'll all be back by June 1. I feel really good. We have strength in the unit on the defensive line. We have a really good inside linebacker in Daniel Green, who I feel like is primed to have an All-American type year.
"The strength of our football team is our defensive line. We can go eight or nine deep there with talented players just to keep them fresh and keep rotating them. We get Eli Huggins back, and we think he's the best defensive tackle in the league. He came back for a sixth year. Felix Anudike-Uzomah is a really special player. The guy who's unsung is Khalid Duke, who is a hybrid defensive end or linebacker, and might be one of the most explosive defensive linemen in the Big 12. He missed all but two games last year. You throw in Nate Matlack and Jaylen Pickle, and we have a lot of depth there.
"We have two really good cornerbacks in Ekow Boye-Doe and Julius Brents. Safety is where we lost a lot of guys. We lost Russ Yeast, who was drafted, and Jahron McPherson had a great career. Ross Elder was the glue back there. That's probably where we have the most new guys is in the secondary. Coach Joe Klanderman, myself and Coach Van Malone have our work cut out for us this summer and fall, but we have the right kind of guys and we're excited about that. As we continue into the summer and fall, it's just putting everyone together. We brought three kids in at semester and added another three guys in the secondary just this last month. It's going to be a work in progress in the secondary. There's competition and competitiveness."
Special teams return virtually everybody across the board
"Special teams are how we win football games at Kansas State. In our return game, we've had a number of kick returns and punt returns over the past few years. We've blocked a number of punts. We've been great in the kicking game. We've been great covering the field on kickoffs and punts. If you're not careful, you can take it for granted. We have our kicker back, our long snapper back, our punter back and holder back. That's a comfort for us knowing that we have experienced guys back there. Those guys work as hard as any players we have."
Excitement builds for Golden Cats graduation ceremonies
"This was our first real offseason where it wasn't COVID. What we do for a senior party is we bring all the 18 seniors back and ask all the former players to come back and we honor the seniors in front of the former players, and we welcome those kids into the Golden Cats. We had this thing up to 500 former players at North Dakota State. We had 50 here a month ago. Those guys promised me we'd get 250 next year and probably 500 in another year.
"You're honoring the people who've done it before you. It's about honoring the guys who laid the foundation. We've got the greatest facilities because of Coach Snyder and the foundation that was laid with all those players. Let's honor those guys, bring them back and celebrate them."
Players Mentioned
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