Spring Saw Progress on Offense
Apr 29, 2026 | Football, Sports Extra
By: D. Scott Fritchen
As Kansas State wrapped up its first spring football season under new head coach Collin Klein, offensive coordinator Sean Gleeson painted a portrait of steady progress for a unit that seemingly quickly gained footing while adopting Klein's playbook that led to massive results both at K-State and at Texas A&M.
"I've seen what you'd expect, a progressive growth," said Gleeson, who Klein hired in December after working with the quarterbacks at Missouri in each of the past two seasons. "We're still a work in progress. Everybody this time of year is still building a foundation for what's going to come in the season, but our guys have responded well.
"We're not behind schedule. We're right on track, but we're not a finished product yet."
K-State has 34 returning letterwinners, its fewest since 2005, but it secured the services of 27 transfers who have combined to play in 484 games. In all, K-State welcomed 43 new players this spring, and that number will grow to over 53 new players when more arrive in June.
The fixture of the K-State offense, senior quarterback Avery Johnson, wowed coaches, particularly toward the end of the 15-practice session inside the Shamrock Practice Facility that ended on Saturday.
Johnson is reunited with Klein, his top recruiter to K-State, before Klein left to serve as offensive coordinator at Texas A&M in 2024 and 2025. The former four-star quarterback and top-rated dual threat passer in the Class of 2023, Johnson is now one of three signal-callers in K-State history with 5,000 passing yards and 1,000 rushing yards and is tied for No. 1 all-time with 48 passing touchdowns.
Johnson's 26 career starts are tied for sixth by a quarterback since 1990 and his 16 victories as a starter rank eighth.
"Our quarterbacks coach, Christian Ellsworth, is doing an awesome job with Avery," Gleeson said. "I'm a fly on the wall in the room bouncing around a couple different spots. Avery is exciting to work with because he's probably the fastest guy I've ever coached, but just reflecting on the spring, as of late, he's a really effective pocket mover for a fast guy. One of the things that you can struggle with as a quarterback coach at times is when someone is a playmaker like him, they can get skittish at times and maybe see things that aren't there and have an inkling to take off unnecessarily, but Avery does a really good job to make explosive plays at quarterback, while also settling back to be a thrower when there are some trash around his feet.
"He has a really cool balance of playmaking ability but also in-pocket movement that's needed at times when you want to be a great downfield thrower."
One of Johnson's favorite targets in the fall could be Josh Manning, who took his K-State recruiting trip with Johnson before decommitting from K-State to play for home state Missouri, but after three seasons transferred to K-State and pulled open the doors to the Vanier Family Football Complex on January 17. Klein also played a part in Manning's high school recruitment to K-State, and the four-star prospect and 38th-rated wide receiver by 247Sports became fast friends with Johnson, one of the nation's top high school quarterbacks.
The 6-foot-2, 211-pound Manning played at Missouri with Gleeson on the sideline as quarterbacks coach and steadily emerged as a contributor for the Tigers with 42 catches for 510 yards and three touchdowns over three seasons.
Manning joins junior college transfer Derrick Salley Jr. (Hutchinson Community College), senior Brandon White (Kentucky/Hawai'i) and sophomore Izaiah Williams (Texas A&M) as key newcomers at the wide receiver position. K-State returns senior Jaron Tibbs, who transferred from Purdue prior to last season, and several others.
"I don't want to name too many names, if possible," Gleeson said. "I have a little bit of experience with Josh, being with him and seeing his growth from being at Missouri and then coming here. So, I've seen some things that I'm super excited about after watching his maturation over the last two years. I think all those guys are doing a fine job. We've got plenty of depth and talent in that room."
Klein underscored the importance of the running back position in his offense from the start, as he said in his initial spring news conference that "we're probably as good as an offense to play running back as there is in the country."
Last season while overseeing a highly successful offense as coordinator at Texas A&M, Klein's offense produced five different running backs that amassed at least 200 yards during the season and each averaged at least 4.70 yards per carry and four of them scored at least four touchdowns.
Junior running back Joe Jackson ranks seventh all-time in K-State history with 5.37 yards per rushing attempt and has 1,139 rushing yards in his 24-game career. That includes his K-State record-setting 293-yard rushing performance at Utah last November en route to All-Big 12 Third Team honors.
One of K-State's biggest additions appears to be 6-foot-1, 225-pound Jay Harris, the 22-year-old former Division II First Team All-American running back from Northwest Missouri State, and a senior transfer who shined for Oregon in the College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Peach Bowl yet thirsted to make more of a consistent impact on a team.
"The two guys there, Joe and Jay, are the senior members of that group," Gleeson said. "Even going back to stations, but during the winter workout time where we don't have footballs out there and we're doing calisthenics and jumping over things and lifting things and running hard, you'd think there'd be maybe some sort of adversarial nature for Joe and Jay, as proven as those two are and with as many college reps banked as those two have, but they've really pushed each other.
"Running backs coach Cory Patterson, credit to him for creating that environment where guys are bringing out the best in each other. I'm happy with those guys, but there's other people in that room, too, who are coming along well also."
Spending the 2019 season as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Oklahoma State, Gleeson oversaw a unit that ranked 17th in rushing, 21st in total offense and 35th in scoring offense. With Gleeson calling the plays, Consensus All-American running back Chuba Hubbard led the nation with 2,094 rushing yards before going in the fourth round of the 2019 NFL Draft.
At Rutgers, the Gleeson-led offense had the fourth-best improvement in the FBS by scoring 13.4 more points per game in 2020 than prior to his arrival. The Scarlet Knights were also the most improved offense in the Big Ten in total offensive touchdowns. Gleeson was a 2020 candidate for the Broyles Award as the nation's top assistant coach, and he mentored two NFL Draft picks in Bo Melton (Seattle) and Isaiah Pacheco (Kansas City).
"Jay is very gifted physically, and when he walks in a room, he's central casting for running back," Gleeson said. "He's been in the weight room before and has an intensity about him. I don't want to compare him too much to guys I've coached in the past, but what's best about him is his practice work ethic. Being around Pacheco for two years and Chuba Hubbard, I look in Jay's eyes in practice, and everything is important to him, whether it's stretch, whether it's routes on air, the meshes period. You have to hold him back at times and say, 'Hey, man, we're just kind of walking through right now.'
"He plays scout-team defense sometimes in the walk-throughs and he looks like Ed Reed in the backend running around. You're like, 'Slow down, buddy.' He's awesome. He's a great practice player. That is probably why he's had some success in a short time here."
Gleeson indicated that the offense continued to grow while being challenged in situational scenarios in spring practice.
"Collin and I have talked a lot about situational football late, and we handled some of the two-minute drills in practice really effectively at both the quarterback and in the skill positions," Gleeson said. "One of the things we've been working on and with me at Missouri having gone against this defense under Jordan Peterson for two years at Texas A&M, is third down, where A&M had always been a challenged. JP has done a really good job putting his own spin on some of the things they're doing and bringing some new installation into that world, but they've been equally challenging as far as third-down production.
"Those are things after spring we have to keep with it."
As Kansas State wrapped up its first spring football season under new head coach Collin Klein, offensive coordinator Sean Gleeson painted a portrait of steady progress for a unit that seemingly quickly gained footing while adopting Klein's playbook that led to massive results both at K-State and at Texas A&M.
"I've seen what you'd expect, a progressive growth," said Gleeson, who Klein hired in December after working with the quarterbacks at Missouri in each of the past two seasons. "We're still a work in progress. Everybody this time of year is still building a foundation for what's going to come in the season, but our guys have responded well.
"We're not behind schedule. We're right on track, but we're not a finished product yet."
K-State has 34 returning letterwinners, its fewest since 2005, but it secured the services of 27 transfers who have combined to play in 484 games. In all, K-State welcomed 43 new players this spring, and that number will grow to over 53 new players when more arrive in June.
The fixture of the K-State offense, senior quarterback Avery Johnson, wowed coaches, particularly toward the end of the 15-practice session inside the Shamrock Practice Facility that ended on Saturday.
Johnson is reunited with Klein, his top recruiter to K-State, before Klein left to serve as offensive coordinator at Texas A&M in 2024 and 2025. The former four-star quarterback and top-rated dual threat passer in the Class of 2023, Johnson is now one of three signal-callers in K-State history with 5,000 passing yards and 1,000 rushing yards and is tied for No. 1 all-time with 48 passing touchdowns.
Johnson's 26 career starts are tied for sixth by a quarterback since 1990 and his 16 victories as a starter rank eighth.
"Our quarterbacks coach, Christian Ellsworth, is doing an awesome job with Avery," Gleeson said. "I'm a fly on the wall in the room bouncing around a couple different spots. Avery is exciting to work with because he's probably the fastest guy I've ever coached, but just reflecting on the spring, as of late, he's a really effective pocket mover for a fast guy. One of the things that you can struggle with as a quarterback coach at times is when someone is a playmaker like him, they can get skittish at times and maybe see things that aren't there and have an inkling to take off unnecessarily, but Avery does a really good job to make explosive plays at quarterback, while also settling back to be a thrower when there are some trash around his feet.
"He has a really cool balance of playmaking ability but also in-pocket movement that's needed at times when you want to be a great downfield thrower."
One of Johnson's favorite targets in the fall could be Josh Manning, who took his K-State recruiting trip with Johnson before decommitting from K-State to play for home state Missouri, but after three seasons transferred to K-State and pulled open the doors to the Vanier Family Football Complex on January 17. Klein also played a part in Manning's high school recruitment to K-State, and the four-star prospect and 38th-rated wide receiver by 247Sports became fast friends with Johnson, one of the nation's top high school quarterbacks.
The 6-foot-2, 211-pound Manning played at Missouri with Gleeson on the sideline as quarterbacks coach and steadily emerged as a contributor for the Tigers with 42 catches for 510 yards and three touchdowns over three seasons.
Manning joins junior college transfer Derrick Salley Jr. (Hutchinson Community College), senior Brandon White (Kentucky/Hawai'i) and sophomore Izaiah Williams (Texas A&M) as key newcomers at the wide receiver position. K-State returns senior Jaron Tibbs, who transferred from Purdue prior to last season, and several others.
"I don't want to name too many names, if possible," Gleeson said. "I have a little bit of experience with Josh, being with him and seeing his growth from being at Missouri and then coming here. So, I've seen some things that I'm super excited about after watching his maturation over the last two years. I think all those guys are doing a fine job. We've got plenty of depth and talent in that room."
Klein underscored the importance of the running back position in his offense from the start, as he said in his initial spring news conference that "we're probably as good as an offense to play running back as there is in the country."
Last season while overseeing a highly successful offense as coordinator at Texas A&M, Klein's offense produced five different running backs that amassed at least 200 yards during the season and each averaged at least 4.70 yards per carry and four of them scored at least four touchdowns.
Junior running back Joe Jackson ranks seventh all-time in K-State history with 5.37 yards per rushing attempt and has 1,139 rushing yards in his 24-game career. That includes his K-State record-setting 293-yard rushing performance at Utah last November en route to All-Big 12 Third Team honors.
One of K-State's biggest additions appears to be 6-foot-1, 225-pound Jay Harris, the 22-year-old former Division II First Team All-American running back from Northwest Missouri State, and a senior transfer who shined for Oregon in the College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Peach Bowl yet thirsted to make more of a consistent impact on a team.
"The two guys there, Joe and Jay, are the senior members of that group," Gleeson said. "Even going back to stations, but during the winter workout time where we don't have footballs out there and we're doing calisthenics and jumping over things and lifting things and running hard, you'd think there'd be maybe some sort of adversarial nature for Joe and Jay, as proven as those two are and with as many college reps banked as those two have, but they've really pushed each other.
"Running backs coach Cory Patterson, credit to him for creating that environment where guys are bringing out the best in each other. I'm happy with those guys, but there's other people in that room, too, who are coming along well also."
Spending the 2019 season as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Oklahoma State, Gleeson oversaw a unit that ranked 17th in rushing, 21st in total offense and 35th in scoring offense. With Gleeson calling the plays, Consensus All-American running back Chuba Hubbard led the nation with 2,094 rushing yards before going in the fourth round of the 2019 NFL Draft.
At Rutgers, the Gleeson-led offense had the fourth-best improvement in the FBS by scoring 13.4 more points per game in 2020 than prior to his arrival. The Scarlet Knights were also the most improved offense in the Big Ten in total offensive touchdowns. Gleeson was a 2020 candidate for the Broyles Award as the nation's top assistant coach, and he mentored two NFL Draft picks in Bo Melton (Seattle) and Isaiah Pacheco (Kansas City).
"Jay is very gifted physically, and when he walks in a room, he's central casting for running back," Gleeson said. "He's been in the weight room before and has an intensity about him. I don't want to compare him too much to guys I've coached in the past, but what's best about him is his practice work ethic. Being around Pacheco for two years and Chuba Hubbard, I look in Jay's eyes in practice, and everything is important to him, whether it's stretch, whether it's routes on air, the meshes period. You have to hold him back at times and say, 'Hey, man, we're just kind of walking through right now.'
"He plays scout-team defense sometimes in the walk-throughs and he looks like Ed Reed in the backend running around. You're like, 'Slow down, buddy.' He's awesome. He's a great practice player. That is probably why he's had some success in a short time here."
Gleeson indicated that the offense continued to grow while being challenged in situational scenarios in spring practice.
"Collin and I have talked a lot about situational football late, and we handled some of the two-minute drills in practice really effectively at both the quarterback and in the skill positions," Gleeson said. "One of the things we've been working on and with me at Missouri having gone against this defense under Jordan Peterson for two years at Texas A&M, is third down, where A&M had always been a challenged. JP has done a really good job putting his own spin on some of the things they're doing and bringing some new installation into that world, but they've been equally challenging as far as third-down production.
"Those are things after spring we have to keep with it."
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