Kansas State University Athletics
Relaxed and at Peace
Dec 04, 2025 | Football, Sports Extra
By: D. Scott Fritchen
Exactly 2,548 days after Chris Klieman stood at his introductory news conference at the Vanier Family Football Complex theater room on December 12, 2018, the second-winningest head coach in the history of Kansas State football sauntered into the same theater room on Wednesday at 4:13 p.m., his eyes wide from a long standing ovation from K-State coaches, staff and athletic department employees, and he sat down at the same table that he occupied countless times on fall afternoons for his weekly news conference.
"Wow," Klieman said, surveying the crowd. "I can't thank everybody enough for being here. It just goes to show me and prove to me that the good guys win, and doing things the right way, and doing it with class, and with integrity is the right way.
"Guys, that's the K-State way."
On Wednesday, Klieman had an announcement to make: He had retired.
Klieman wore a black hoodie with a white Powercat embedded upon the right sleeve, and he sat in front of a piece of paper that he hardly glanced at during his six-minute dialog in front of reporters.
"It's been an emotional day for me," he said, finally. "I am at peace."
The 58-year-old Klieman, who was hired by Athletic Director Gene Taylor on December 10, 2018, after winning four national championships at North Dakota State, guided K-State to a 2022 Big 12 Championship and six bowl games in seven seasons. He led a K-State program that entering the 2025 season was one of just five Power 4 teams to win at least nine games each of the last three seasons with at least one conference championship in that timeframe, joining Alabama, Clemson, Georgia and Oregon. His tenure featured Top-10 wins, bowl trips, victories over Kansas, and sold-out crowds at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
"I took this job with little-to-no Power 4 experience, but I had a guy that believed in me, and loved me, and I'm proud of what we accomplished in these seven years," Klieman said. "We did it with hard work, dedication, with the right type of people, and had everybody with both feet in all the time.
"Thanks to all the great players, support staff and coaches, I look at my five years at North Dakota State and we won four national championships in five years, and I look at our great seven years here, and as a Division I head coach for 12 years, I'm damn proud of the body of work that all of us put together."
Klieman finishes his career with a 128-47 record, and his 72.7% career winning percentage ranks fourth among current FBS coaches that have completed at least 10 seasons. He is also one of just 15 current Power 4 full-time head coaches with at least 100 career victories.
Klieman's 54 wins in his seven-year tenure at K-State are the most among active Big 12 programs. His 10 wins in 2022 and nine wins in both 2023 and 2024 is the longest streak of nine or more wins at K-State since the 1990s.
K-State's six total bowl appearances are tied for the most in the league, while the Wildcats are one of two Big 12 programs reach the postseason each of the last five seasons. Klieman faced Kansas seven times, and seven times left victorious, extending K-State's series record to 17-straight wins in the Sunflower Showdown.
Klieman's five AP Top 10 victories are the most of any active Big 12 program since 2019 and his eight AP Top 20 wins since 2019 are tied for second most among current Big 12 teams.
Under Klieman, K-State had 26 First Team All-American designations from a total of eight total All-Americans in Felix Anudike-Uzomah, Phillip Brooks, Cooper Beebe, Malik Knowles, Randen Plattner, Ben Sinnott, Deuce Vaughn and Joshua Youngblood. Klieman also had 104 total All-Big 12 accolades with 2025 honors still pending. In six seasons, K-State also had a combined 212 Academic All-Big 12 honors — second most in the Big 12 over that span — including a school-record 45 in 2023. In 2024, K-State had 17 All-Big 12 selections, marking the fourth-straight season K-State combined for at least 15 honors from the league's coaches.
"I've always said this when I've come into this room after a tough loss, 'Don't walk around on eggshells for me,'" Klieman said. "We're going to celebrate my career, and I'm going to be around here next week for the players. I'm going to get out of here this weekend with my family and go see my kids, but I'll be around next week to visit with our players and answer questions from those guys.
"I can't thank all of you enough for allowing the Kliemans to come into Manhattan and build something here."
After Klieman spoke, the native of Waterloo, Iowa, rose and joined Taylor in the front of the room for a prolonged embrace, an embrace filled with memories that span more than a decade, back when Taylor first met Klieman, then a defensive backs coach, at North Dakota State in 2011. The two shared a bond, perhaps one of the strongest athletic director-head coach bonds in collegiate athletics, as Taylor hired Klieman as North Dakota State head coach in 2013, where Klieman led the Bison to four FCS national championships, including his final one in 2018, shortly after Klieman hired him to become the 35th head coach in K-State football history on December 10, 2018.
"People thought I was nuts because I hired my drinking buddy from Fargo, North Dakota," Taylor said, grinning. "It worked out pretty well. I told Chris in the interview process, 'You're going to have to drive down a highway that's named after one of the greatest coaches and walk into a stadium that has a statue of one of the greatest coaches, and every time you look up at the press box it's going to say Bill Snyder Family Stadium. You're going to have to be OK with that.' And he was.
"He not only built on Coach Snyder's culture, but he put his own mark on it, and he brought in very similar kind of players and staff at this place and was successful and did it with class and dignity — and won."
At his introductory news conference, Klieman wore a suit, held a purple No. 35 jersey with Taylor, and moments later, Klieman said something that would reverberate throughout the locker room, meeting rooms and hallways of Vanier over the next seven years.
"Win the dang day," Klieman said.
"Win The Dang Day" swept across the state of Kansas like a summer brush fire, and #WinTheDangDay became a hot trending topic, as K-State found its man to carry on the storied success of a program filled with success for three decades but that finished the 2018 season at 5-7, ending a streak of eight consecutive bowl appearances under College Football Hall-of-Famer Bill Snyder, who announced his retirement on December 1, 2018.
"Gene and I had talked about this a couple of different times, that I followed Craig Bohl at North Dakota State after he won three consecutive national championships, and people said, 'Don't you dare follow Craig Bohl.' And we won four of five," Klieman said. "Then I followed the greatest coach, in my opinion, in the history of college football in Bill Snyder, and everybody said, 'You don't want to do that.' I said, 'I just followed a guy who won three in a row, and we did OK. I'm ready to go to work.'
"We did a pretty damn good job here."
Klieman and the Wildcats won the dang day many, many times during his seven seasons in Manhattan.
Relaxed and at peace, Klieman now embarks upon a new journey: retirement.
"I love and appreciate everybody," Klieman said. "Thanks for everything, guys."
Exactly 2,548 days after Chris Klieman stood at his introductory news conference at the Vanier Family Football Complex theater room on December 12, 2018, the second-winningest head coach in the history of Kansas State football sauntered into the same theater room on Wednesday at 4:13 p.m., his eyes wide from a long standing ovation from K-State coaches, staff and athletic department employees, and he sat down at the same table that he occupied countless times on fall afternoons for his weekly news conference.
"Wow," Klieman said, surveying the crowd. "I can't thank everybody enough for being here. It just goes to show me and prove to me that the good guys win, and doing things the right way, and doing it with class, and with integrity is the right way.
"Guys, that's the K-State way."
On Wednesday, Klieman had an announcement to make: He had retired.
Klieman wore a black hoodie with a white Powercat embedded upon the right sleeve, and he sat in front of a piece of paper that he hardly glanced at during his six-minute dialog in front of reporters.
"It's been an emotional day for me," he said, finally. "I am at peace."
The 58-year-old Klieman, who was hired by Athletic Director Gene Taylor on December 10, 2018, after winning four national championships at North Dakota State, guided K-State to a 2022 Big 12 Championship and six bowl games in seven seasons. He led a K-State program that entering the 2025 season was one of just five Power 4 teams to win at least nine games each of the last three seasons with at least one conference championship in that timeframe, joining Alabama, Clemson, Georgia and Oregon. His tenure featured Top-10 wins, bowl trips, victories over Kansas, and sold-out crowds at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
"I took this job with little-to-no Power 4 experience, but I had a guy that believed in me, and loved me, and I'm proud of what we accomplished in these seven years," Klieman said. "We did it with hard work, dedication, with the right type of people, and had everybody with both feet in all the time.
"Thanks to all the great players, support staff and coaches, I look at my five years at North Dakota State and we won four national championships in five years, and I look at our great seven years here, and as a Division I head coach for 12 years, I'm damn proud of the body of work that all of us put together."
Klieman finishes his career with a 128-47 record, and his 72.7% career winning percentage ranks fourth among current FBS coaches that have completed at least 10 seasons. He is also one of just 15 current Power 4 full-time head coaches with at least 100 career victories.
Klieman's 54 wins in his seven-year tenure at K-State are the most among active Big 12 programs. His 10 wins in 2022 and nine wins in both 2023 and 2024 is the longest streak of nine or more wins at K-State since the 1990s.
K-State's six total bowl appearances are tied for the most in the league, while the Wildcats are one of two Big 12 programs reach the postseason each of the last five seasons. Klieman faced Kansas seven times, and seven times left victorious, extending K-State's series record to 17-straight wins in the Sunflower Showdown.
Klieman's five AP Top 10 victories are the most of any active Big 12 program since 2019 and his eight AP Top 20 wins since 2019 are tied for second most among current Big 12 teams.
Under Klieman, K-State had 26 First Team All-American designations from a total of eight total All-Americans in Felix Anudike-Uzomah, Phillip Brooks, Cooper Beebe, Malik Knowles, Randen Plattner, Ben Sinnott, Deuce Vaughn and Joshua Youngblood. Klieman also had 104 total All-Big 12 accolades with 2025 honors still pending. In six seasons, K-State also had a combined 212 Academic All-Big 12 honors — second most in the Big 12 over that span — including a school-record 45 in 2023. In 2024, K-State had 17 All-Big 12 selections, marking the fourth-straight season K-State combined for at least 15 honors from the league's coaches.
"I've always said this when I've come into this room after a tough loss, 'Don't walk around on eggshells for me,'" Klieman said. "We're going to celebrate my career, and I'm going to be around here next week for the players. I'm going to get out of here this weekend with my family and go see my kids, but I'll be around next week to visit with our players and answer questions from those guys.
"I can't thank all of you enough for allowing the Kliemans to come into Manhattan and build something here."
After Klieman spoke, the native of Waterloo, Iowa, rose and joined Taylor in the front of the room for a prolonged embrace, an embrace filled with memories that span more than a decade, back when Taylor first met Klieman, then a defensive backs coach, at North Dakota State in 2011. The two shared a bond, perhaps one of the strongest athletic director-head coach bonds in collegiate athletics, as Taylor hired Klieman as North Dakota State head coach in 2013, where Klieman led the Bison to four FCS national championships, including his final one in 2018, shortly after Klieman hired him to become the 35th head coach in K-State football history on December 10, 2018.
"People thought I was nuts because I hired my drinking buddy from Fargo, North Dakota," Taylor said, grinning. "It worked out pretty well. I told Chris in the interview process, 'You're going to have to drive down a highway that's named after one of the greatest coaches and walk into a stadium that has a statue of one of the greatest coaches, and every time you look up at the press box it's going to say Bill Snyder Family Stadium. You're going to have to be OK with that.' And he was.
"He not only built on Coach Snyder's culture, but he put his own mark on it, and he brought in very similar kind of players and staff at this place and was successful and did it with class and dignity — and won."
At his introductory news conference, Klieman wore a suit, held a purple No. 35 jersey with Taylor, and moments later, Klieman said something that would reverberate throughout the locker room, meeting rooms and hallways of Vanier over the next seven years.
"Win the dang day," Klieman said.
"Win The Dang Day" swept across the state of Kansas like a summer brush fire, and #WinTheDangDay became a hot trending topic, as K-State found its man to carry on the storied success of a program filled with success for three decades but that finished the 2018 season at 5-7, ending a streak of eight consecutive bowl appearances under College Football Hall-of-Famer Bill Snyder, who announced his retirement on December 1, 2018.
"Gene and I had talked about this a couple of different times, that I followed Craig Bohl at North Dakota State after he won three consecutive national championships, and people said, 'Don't you dare follow Craig Bohl.' And we won four of five," Klieman said. "Then I followed the greatest coach, in my opinion, in the history of college football in Bill Snyder, and everybody said, 'You don't want to do that.' I said, 'I just followed a guy who won three in a row, and we did OK. I'm ready to go to work.'
"We did a pretty damn good job here."
Klieman and the Wildcats won the dang day many, many times during his seven seasons in Manhattan.
Relaxed and at peace, Klieman now embarks upon a new journey: retirement.
"I love and appreciate everybody," Klieman said. "Thanks for everything, guys."
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