Three observations from Kansas State HC Chris Klieman
Kansas State NIL
One of my questions to Kansas State head coach Chris Klieman at the last press conference of the Spring focused on the transfer portal. After all, it opens on Monday and a lot of coaches are working in advance with that in mind.
K-State is no different. We’re told that they will be conducting meetings with players all week to make sure everyone they want to keep is buttoned down. And they’ve done their work ahead of time to so they aren’t caught off guard.
Klieman didn’t mince words about it. He doesn’t really have anxiety because of it and isn’t really worried about it. Some of that is because he just understands that’s college sports today and a large chunk of it is the belief that they’ve secured enough NIL resources to take care of their own players.
There has been a large push for additional NIL funds in the past few months by both the Kansas State football and basketball team. The head coaches have stressed that much of it is not necessarily going after other players (even though they will) but retaining their best players.
Change to the offense
Again, Klieman wasn’t concealing much when speaking with the media on Saturday. Though he purposefully left out the details and finer points of how it will look, he admitted that the K-State offense would look pretty different.
To be fair, Avery Johnson said there wasn’t significant change but did acknowledge that it will have some different looks to it. The starting Kansas State quarterback mentioned it being more simplified and a lot of the unnecessary stuff was eliminated.
Klieman noted that they are doing some things different when it comes to run scheme. They’ve added some things to the playbook and took some things out that didn’t belong. They want every single thing to be intentional and to have a purpose.
Defensive twists
Though there were already whispers about it, the first we heard about some amendments to the defensive side of the ball came last week from edge rusher Chiddi Obiazor. The redshirt freshmen discussed some different things they were doing with the defensive line.
I thought he might get a slap on the wrist for divulging some of those details but maybe not. Klieman essentially confirmed everything that Obiazor shared. They are experimenting with some different things to get more defensive ends on the field.
They love that position group so much that they knew they had to make some adjustments to make sure more of them could get on the field and take on even more snaps. K-State loves what they have in Obiazor, Travis Bates, Tobi Osunsanmi, Ryan Davis, Jordan Allen, Brendan Mott and Cody Stufflebean.
Stufflebean and Jevon Banks could play both inside and out this upcoming year.
I’m not sure I would call what they are doing a wholesale change. At it’s core it still sounds like a 3-3-5 alignment because they aren’t steering away from having a nose guard. But it may present itself and appear to be a 4-down set-up.
Kansas State is just figuring out ways to get their best players on the field.
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