Chris Klieman, Kansas State agree to new 8-year contract
Kansas State Wildcats football and coach Chris Klieman have agreed to a new eight-year contract, which keeps Klieman tied to the program through the 2030 season.
The agreement was initially reported by Pete Thamel of ESPN earlier this month, with K-State announcing the contract on Monday.
Klieman’s new salary averages out to $5.5 million per year, putting him near the top of the Big 12 in annual value. Of the times returning to the Big 12 after Texas and Oklahoma leave next year, only Oklahoma State Cowboys coach Mike Gundy will have a higher annual salary than Klieman.
According to Thamel, Klieman is receiving approximately a $1.5 million per year increase over his previous contract.
“Chris has done an unbelievable job building a program in four years that not only has won a Big 12 Championship, but even more importantly, one that players have taken great pride in and helped sustain a championship culture,” K-State director of athletics Gene Taylor said in a statement released Monday. “He is a tremendous fit for K-State and Manhattan, and we want to continue to ride the momentum that he and his staff have fostered. We are excited that Chris will be the leader of our football program for many years to come.”
K-State is coming off its fourth Big 12 title in program history in 2022, when the Wildcats finished 10-4 overall, beat the previously undefeated TCU Horned Frogs in the Big 12 Championship Game and made it to the Sugar Bowl, where they lost to the Alabama Crimson Tide. That was K-State’s first BCS/New Year’s Six bowl game appearance since the 2013 Fiesta Bowl.
In four years with Kansas State, Klieman has posted a 30-20 overall record and a 21-16 mark in conference games with three winning seasons. The only losing season came in 2020, a year which was shortened to 10 games by the Covid-19 pandemic. Between K-State and his five-season stint at North Dakota State, his career record is 102-33.
The 2023 K-State season kicks off on Sept. 2 at home against Southeast Missouri State.
