A Life-Changing Experience Waiting in the Wings
Apr 25, 2024 | Football, Sports Extra
By: D. Scott Fritchen
It's Wednesday, April 24, 2024, at 4:05 p.m., and Kansas State football players sit in the team meeting room on the third floor of the Vanier Family Football Complex wondering the exact reason for a team meeting. At this moment, the large video screen turns on to reveal scenes of Ireland.
At that moment, it's also revealed that K-State will open the 2025 season against Iowa State in the Aer Lingus College Football Classic in Dublin, Ireland, on Saturday, August 23, 2025.
Cheers ring out across the room as K-State players in their sweats and shirts applaud the announcement, which will pit two longtime rivals on historic soil — Aviva Stadium, which is constructed over the former Lansdowne Road Stadium, which was founded in 1872 and was the oldest sports stadium in Europe.
We have seen nothing quite like this.
"We're excited to come out there and represent football in America abroad in Ireland," K-State head coach Chris Klieman says following the applause in the meeting room. "It's going to be an unbelievable trip and an unbelievable experience. It's going to be a special, special trip."
This will mark K-State's second international game in history and its first since playing Nebraska in the 1992 Tokyo Bowl in Japan.
But never before in K-State's 128-year history of football have we seen a 4,123-mile journey to a place once known as Dominium Hiberniae, some 483 years old, which is known as Ireland today, lush with parks, groves, and longstony beaches in Dublin. Maurice Elder, Veryl Switzer and Corky Taylor could never have imagined such a gridiron adventure to a faraway land, ringing with Celtic ballads, brimming with Irish Stew, and ripe with rolling green hills.
There's the Dublin Castle, Kilmainham Gaol and the Little Museum of Dublin. There's the National Gallery of Ireland, the Long Room Library and St. Patrick's Cathedral.
In 16 months, there also will be Avery Johnson, Jayce Brown, Asa Newsom and other Wildcats stepping foot upon the Perennial Ryegrass of Aviva Stadium, taking a moment to bask in the cheers inside the 47,000-capacity venue, eager to impose their will against the Cyclones in a Big 12 Conference clash certain to reverberate across the Flint Hills. It'll mark the Wildcats' first season opener against a league opponent since the inaugural Big 12 matchup against Texas Tech on August 31, 1996.
"You're about to have a life-changing experience and something you're going to tell your grandkids about one day," says John Anthony, Co-Founder of the Aer Lingus Classic and Executive VP, Collegiate of On Location, tells the K-State players. "It's very cool. It doesn't happen if you're not a great program, and it doesn't happen without a great following, and, maybe more importantly, it doesn't happen without a coach who'll let you do this.
"What you're doing here isn't just what happens next Saturday on the field somewhere. It's that he cares about the rest of your life. We want to give huge thanks to Coach Klieman. You can spend the next year and a half talking about this and then spend the rest of your life telling everybody how great it was."
The game between the Wildcats and Cyclones will be the first ever Big 12 matchup in Ireland, the fourth edition of the Aer Lingus Classic and the 10th college football game all-time played in Ireland.
The attendance at Aviva Stadium for the 2023 Aer Lingus Classic between Notre Dame and Navy was a sellout at 49,000, including 39,176 Americans — a world record for the largest number of Americans to travel internationally for a single sporting event. The stadium also hosted college football games in 2012, 2016 and 2022.
On September 1, 2012, the stadium hosted a college football game between Notre Dame and Navy. Georgia Tech and Boston College played there on September 3, 2016. Nebraska played Northwestern there in 2022. Notre Dame played Navy again on August 26, 2023. The stadium will host the season opener between Georgia Tech and Florida State on August 24.
Moments before the official announcement, K-State Athletics Director Gene Taylor sits with game dignitaries in his office discussing the Aer Lingus Classic. Taylor and Anthony met and became friends when Navy played Notre Dame in the Emerald Isle Classic on November 2, 1996, at Croke Park in Dublin. Taylor served in the Navy athletic department and Anthony in the Notre Dame athletic department.
"When John mentioned it to me, because I'd been there before at a different capacity, I thought it'd be a cool idea," Taylor says. When I mentioned it to Coach Klieman and we started talking about it, he made a couple calls to coaches who've been over there, and he was all in."
Anthony says the matchup for the 2025 season opener "came together fairly quickly."
"We'll have a sellout for Florida State and Georgia Tech, and it'll be almost half and half Americans and native locals," Anthony says. "That's most likely to be the model. I'd say our expectation is we'd have 20,000 to 25,000 between K-State and Iowa State that'll go over to it."
Aviva Stadium is home to the Irish rugby union team and the Republic of Ireland football team. It's the oldest rugby union ground in the world. The stadium occupies the site of the former Lansdowne Road Stadium, which was founded in 1872 and demolished in 2007. Aviva Stadium, which was inaugurated on May 15, 2010, is located beside Lansdowne Road railway station.
It's a bowl-shaped structure located in central Dublin in the Ballsbridge area, about 2 kilometers from the city centre. Four tiers on three sides. General access on the lower and upper tiers, premium tickets on the second tier and corporate boxes on the third tier of the bowl.
"It's intimate, very intimate," Anthony says. "Even though it's 47,000 that we'll have, it's close. It's semi-enclosed. The seats are covered so you don't get wet in the rain as a fan. It's a great environment."
From the sky, the stadium looks like a large, beautiful, silver "O."
The stadium is deep into the south side of Dublin, within walking distance of the city centre and O'Connell Bridge and is located in an area with good transport links. Buses arrive from Pembroke Road and Charlotte Quay; Subways from Charlemont and Point Village. The Dublin Area Rapid Transit zips in from Lansdowne Road directly to the stadium.
"Because this is an annual event, we invest heavily into the Irish audience year around," Anthony says. "We want to build that fan base in Ireland. To some extent, they're curious about American football. They're watching NFL. They're watching Red Zone. They're now watching college football. But just as importantly over there, the Irish fan base enjoys the whole spectacle of the event. We have great support from across the country.
"They loved the razzmatazz and they love the event."
Taylor calls the visibility of the K-State brand "huge."
"You think about it, and (the game) is Week Zero, and the fact that it's a conference game and in Ireland, the lead up to it will be huge, too," Taylor says.
The game is certain to be talked about during the 2025 preseason.
"We typically like to have seven home games, but something of this magnitude doesn't come along very often, and for a lot of our players and some of our staff, they haven't been to another country," Taylor says. "I've been over there and they're friendly and welcoming.
"Our kids will have a tremendous experience."
It's 4:25 p.m. and K-State players are at midfield as Irish music blares through the speakers at Bill Snyder Family Stadium. The Aer Lingus Classic logo is plastered to the video boards across the stadium.
It's still 128 days until the start of the 2024 K-State football season.
But for a few moments, thoughts drift toward lush grass in a land far, far away that awaits their arrival in 2025.
It's Wednesday, April 24, 2024, at 4:05 p.m., and Kansas State football players sit in the team meeting room on the third floor of the Vanier Family Football Complex wondering the exact reason for a team meeting. At this moment, the large video screen turns on to reveal scenes of Ireland.
At that moment, it's also revealed that K-State will open the 2025 season against Iowa State in the Aer Lingus College Football Classic in Dublin, Ireland, on Saturday, August 23, 2025.
Cheers ring out across the room as K-State players in their sweats and shirts applaud the announcement, which will pit two longtime rivals on historic soil — Aviva Stadium, which is constructed over the former Lansdowne Road Stadium, which was founded in 1872 and was the oldest sports stadium in Europe.
K-State and Iowa State first met on the gridiron in 1917. Twice the Farmageddon rivalry game was played in Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri, and over 50 times apiece it has been played in either Manhattan or Ames, Iowa.Kicking off 2025 in Ireland 🇮🇪
— K-State Athletics (@kstatesports) April 24, 2024
📄➡️ https://t.co/NliLsjt2oF@KStateFB x @cfbireland pic.twitter.com/nK0Nnj8qaZ
We have seen nothing quite like this.
"We're excited to come out there and represent football in America abroad in Ireland," K-State head coach Chris Klieman says following the applause in the meeting room. "It's going to be an unbelievable trip and an unbelievable experience. It's going to be a special, special trip."
This will mark K-State's second international game in history and its first since playing Nebraska in the 1992 Tokyo Bowl in Japan.
But never before in K-State's 128-year history of football have we seen a 4,123-mile journey to a place once known as Dominium Hiberniae, some 483 years old, which is known as Ireland today, lush with parks, groves, and longstony beaches in Dublin. Maurice Elder, Veryl Switzer and Corky Taylor could never have imagined such a gridiron adventure to a faraway land, ringing with Celtic ballads, brimming with Irish Stew, and ripe with rolling green hills.
There's the Dublin Castle, Kilmainham Gaol and the Little Museum of Dublin. There's the National Gallery of Ireland, the Long Room Library and St. Patrick's Cathedral.
In 16 months, there also will be Avery Johnson, Jayce Brown, Asa Newsom and other Wildcats stepping foot upon the Perennial Ryegrass of Aviva Stadium, taking a moment to bask in the cheers inside the 47,000-capacity venue, eager to impose their will against the Cyclones in a Big 12 Conference clash certain to reverberate across the Flint Hills. It'll mark the Wildcats' first season opener against a league opponent since the inaugural Big 12 matchup against Texas Tech on August 31, 1996.
"You're about to have a life-changing experience and something you're going to tell your grandkids about one day," says John Anthony, Co-Founder of the Aer Lingus Classic and Executive VP, Collegiate of On Location, tells the K-State players. "It's very cool. It doesn't happen if you're not a great program, and it doesn't happen without a great following, and, maybe more importantly, it doesn't happen without a coach who'll let you do this.
"What you're doing here isn't just what happens next Saturday on the field somewhere. It's that he cares about the rest of your life. We want to give huge thanks to Coach Klieman. You can spend the next year and a half talking about this and then spend the rest of your life telling everybody how great it was."
The game between the Wildcats and Cyclones will be the first ever Big 12 matchup in Ireland, the fourth edition of the Aer Lingus Classic and the 10th college football game all-time played in Ireland.
The attendance at Aviva Stadium for the 2023 Aer Lingus Classic between Notre Dame and Navy was a sellout at 49,000, including 39,176 Americans — a world record for the largest number of Americans to travel internationally for a single sporting event. The stadium also hosted college football games in 2012, 2016 and 2022.
On September 1, 2012, the stadium hosted a college football game between Notre Dame and Navy. Georgia Tech and Boston College played there on September 3, 2016. Nebraska played Northwestern there in 2022. Notre Dame played Navy again on August 26, 2023. The stadium will host the season opener between Georgia Tech and Florida State on August 24.
Moments before the official announcement, K-State Athletics Director Gene Taylor sits with game dignitaries in his office discussing the Aer Lingus Classic. Taylor and Anthony met and became friends when Navy played Notre Dame in the Emerald Isle Classic on November 2, 1996, at Croke Park in Dublin. Taylor served in the Navy athletic department and Anthony in the Notre Dame athletic department.
"When John mentioned it to me, because I'd been there before at a different capacity, I thought it'd be a cool idea," Taylor says. When I mentioned it to Coach Klieman and we started talking about it, he made a couple calls to coaches who've been over there, and he was all in."
Anthony says the matchup for the 2025 season opener "came together fairly quickly."
"We'll have a sellout for Florida State and Georgia Tech, and it'll be almost half and half Americans and native locals," Anthony says. "That's most likely to be the model. I'd say our expectation is we'd have 20,000 to 25,000 between K-State and Iowa State that'll go over to it."
Aviva Stadium is home to the Irish rugby union team and the Republic of Ireland football team. It's the oldest rugby union ground in the world. The stadium occupies the site of the former Lansdowne Road Stadium, which was founded in 1872 and demolished in 2007. Aviva Stadium, which was inaugurated on May 15, 2010, is located beside Lansdowne Road railway station.
It's a bowl-shaped structure located in central Dublin in the Ballsbridge area, about 2 kilometers from the city centre. Four tiers on three sides. General access on the lower and upper tiers, premium tickets on the second tier and corporate boxes on the third tier of the bowl.
"It's intimate, very intimate," Anthony says. "Even though it's 47,000 that we'll have, it's close. It's semi-enclosed. The seats are covered so you don't get wet in the rain as a fan. It's a great environment."
From the sky, the stadium looks like a large, beautiful, silver "O."
The stadium is deep into the south side of Dublin, within walking distance of the city centre and O'Connell Bridge and is located in an area with good transport links. Buses arrive from Pembroke Road and Charlotte Quay; Subways from Charlemont and Point Village. The Dublin Area Rapid Transit zips in from Lansdowne Road directly to the stadium.
"Because this is an annual event, we invest heavily into the Irish audience year around," Anthony says. "We want to build that fan base in Ireland. To some extent, they're curious about American football. They're watching NFL. They're watching Red Zone. They're now watching college football. But just as importantly over there, the Irish fan base enjoys the whole spectacle of the event. We have great support from across the country.
"They loved the razzmatazz and they love the event."
Taylor calls the visibility of the K-State brand "huge."
"You think about it, and (the game) is Week Zero, and the fact that it's a conference game and in Ireland, the lead up to it will be huge, too," Taylor says.
The game is certain to be talked about during the 2025 preseason.
"We typically like to have seven home games, but something of this magnitude doesn't come along very often, and for a lot of our players and some of our staff, they haven't been to another country," Taylor says. "I've been over there and they're friendly and welcoming.
"Our kids will have a tremendous experience."
It's 4:25 p.m. and K-State players are at midfield as Irish music blares through the speakers at Bill Snyder Family Stadium. The Aer Lingus Classic logo is plastered to the video boards across the stadium.
It's still 128 days until the start of the 2024 K-State football season.
But for a few moments, thoughts drift toward lush grass in a land far, far away that awaits their arrival in 2025.
Players Mentioned
K-State Track and Field | Sights & Sounds Steve Miller Invitational
Monday, February 23
K-State Baseball | Highlights vs Michigan - Feb. 22, 2026
Monday, February 23
K-State Men's Basketball | Postgame Press Conference at Texas Tech
Sunday, February 22
K-State Women's Basketball | Tess Heal Senior Video
Sunday, February 22
