Feature image from The Wichita Eagle

Who Is He?

The current defending Big 12 Champion at Kansas State, and former 4-time National Champion at North Dakota State, Chris Klieman (pronounced KLY-mun) is a winner everywhere he’s gone with an overall head coaching record of 102-32. His high-powered offenses have been on our radar for so long that he was one of our leading candidates during Purdue’s 2016 coaching search, and since then he won another FCS title and has led KSU for four very successful years.

While both Klieman and Purdue’s modern history both put of a ton of points, they do so in very different ways. Klieman coaches extremely tough teams on both sides of the ball, but on offense his the ground game bread-and-butter is behind an impenetrable line. In 2021, he unleashed Deuce Vaughn, one of college football’s most fun running backs, to the tune of 1425 rushing yards, 378 passing yards, and 11 total touchdowns. He also took in one of Boiled Sports’ favorite curiosities at QB - Adrian Martinez - leaned into his strengths (who’d’ve thought??), and he produced 1,887 total yards and 11 total touchdowns before going down with an injury. Backup QB Will Howard stepped in as Klieman adjusted to a much more a pass-first QB, leading Kansas State to a 5-1 finish and a conference championship win over playoff-bound TCU.

Klieman also developed one NFL-caliber quarterback back at NDSU! DISCLAIMER: Klieman is not responsible for what happened after Carson Wentz was drafted #2 overall in 2016.

All this at what might used to be the worst on-paper job in the Power 5. Bill Snyder worked miracles in that stadium, and Chris Klieman has continued.

Why would he be successful at Purdue?

His high-powered offenses are built behind a stout offensive line, and he has a decade-long track record of adjusting his scheme to maximize the talent of his players. In the modern era of college football, it’s essential that you’re able to sell both recruits and transfers on a vision for success and a clear pathway to showcase skills on huge platforms. And he’s followed a real program legend in Snyder at KSU - he’s one of the very few people on this list who would consider filling Brohm’s shoes would be a cakewalk.

Overall, Klieman is closest to the top of my list of potential coaches to lead Purdue into its next chapter.

Why could he flop at Purdue?

Recruiting at the Power 5 (and now at the Power 2) at a school like Purdue relies on building a wall around certain local areas, consistently drawing talent through the transfer portal, and having inroads to non-traditional recruiting pipelines. While he’s done this for one year at the FBS level, being able to consistently pull this off is a challenge even for the best of coaches (see: Mel Tucker). The lack of Indiana recruiting connections make me wonder, for a fraction of a second.

Would he come to Purdue?

I’m leaning Yes he would at least consider it - the resource gap (read: giant bag of cash for the HC and coaching staff) between a B12 school like Kansas State and a Big Ten (and Power 2) school like Purdue is going to exponentially grow, which makes picking Purdue over Kansas State an easy decision on paper. And how much bigger will it get at Kansas State than beating TCU for a conference title? That proven stability at a Power 2 program like Purdue (and the giant bag of cash) might make the most sense for his next step.

That being said, he’s got a great relationship with the K-State department. could he aim higher with one or two more years at Kansas State?

Edit: Hi, weirdo internet K-State fans. Nice to have you. Your online reaction to “wow your coach rules” is very strange - if Purdue, or other non-Iowa Big Ten jobs, aren’t a threat, you should just be flattered! The way Klieman has gotten the program humming after Snyder is awesome! It’s genuinely weird behavior to twitter-mob a place that thinks you’re doing an unequivocally great job.

But when we talk about the Power 2 resource gap, we’re talking about K-State’s goal of being constantly above-the-middle in the Big 12 (a very possible goal, especially given a good donor base!) and the Big 12’s media rights deal ($30 million per year per school) competing with the media rights deal that, yes, even schools like little old Purdue are about to receive ($100 million per year per school). I’d say it’s more important to have a proper NIL program running, which requires active donor support (which K-State has!). But when it comes to being able to outbid for coaches and their staffs, that resource gap paints a new reality that we all have to get used to.