Kansas State's Chris Klieman Excited For Offensive Look Under New Coordinator
Kansas State coach Chris Klieman is looking forward to building on the team's solid offense from last season.
This starts with new offensive coordinator Matt Wells, hired after Conor Riley departed to the Dallas Cowboys as their offensive line coach.
“Yeah it was the natural fit for me to have Matt step up," Klieman said Wednesday afternoon. "Everyone knows Matt’s pedigree as an offensive coach. He’s a colleague and a close friend. We had a couple conversations when we had this with [Conor] Riley, and it was kind of a no-brainer for me. More importantly, how excited he was to have this opportunity to try to step up and even advance our offense further than we’ve been. And we’ve had some up and down moments offensively, but we've been pretty good the last few years and won a lot of football games. But we still have more in us, and I’m excited for Matt to draw the rest of it out of us.”
The Wildcats boasted one of the best rushing attacks in the conference, but the passing attack was relatively average under sophomore Avery Johnson. Klieman hopes there can be more balance in the offensive structure next season.
“We're getting coach Wells’ fingerprints and footprints on how he wants to do things," Klieman said. "Would the average fan see a lot of difference? No. But for me, that’s been doing this with our offense for the handful of years we have here. I think there’s gonna be some adjustments offensively, but not wholesale.”
Jayden Armant is a graduate of the Howard University School of Communications and a contributor to Kansas State Wildcats on SI. He can be reached at jaydenshome14@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @jaydenarmant.
Jayden is a journalism school graduate of Howard University. He was the 2024 recipient of the Terez Paylor scholarship award. He previously worked at the Orlando Sentinel.