Countdown to Dublin: A History of the Kansas State Wildcats
By Simon Carroll
College football is back! The 2025 season kicks off on Saturday, with Week 0 headlined by the Aer Lingus College Classic in Dublin. In a two-part series, Simon Carroll previews the two programs taking part this year – beginning with the Kansas State Wildcats:
The Little Apple
Manhattan, Kansas. Affectionately referred to as ‘The Little Apple’ for obvious reasons, this relatively small city in the North East of the Sunflower State is home to approximately 55,000 people. Enveloped with the heart of the picturesque Flint Hills, it is a hotspot for tourists thanks to its scenic beauty, outdoor attractions and vibrant cultural scene. Home to one of the oldest army posts in the United States, Fort Riley brings military history to the city as the base for ‘Big Red One’, the 1st Infantry Division. But of course, since 1863, Manhattan has been synonymous with the state’s land grant college and first public institution of higher learning: Kansas State University.
As is customary in the US, where a university is established soon football would follow. Kansas State football team was created thirty years later, defeating St. Mary’s college 18-10 on Thanksgiving Day 1893. Their first long-term head coach, Mike Ahearn, coached for six years between 1905 and 1910, each time leading the team to a winning season and bowing out with a 10-1 record. With two conference championships under their belt from the Kansas Intercollegiate Athletic Association, a new football powerhouse in the Great Heartlands was born.
More than 100 years later, with the university growing to a modern day enrollment of 25,000 students, Kansas State is now considered to be within the top 200 seats of learning in the world. This is a far cry from its inception, where they had just 52 students – a 26-26 split of men and women as K-State became only the second public institution of higher learning to admit students equally by gender. Held in high esteem for its programs in agriculture, veterinary medicine, engineering and architecture, the university has matched that with a robust and successful athletics program – of which their football team is an integral part.
The Birth of the Wildcats
Regional success in the early years saw Kansas State’s football team become a hot commodity. Quickly scooped up by the Missouri Valley Conference (which boasted programs such as Kansas, Iowa State, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma), K-State would become one of the biggest football teams in the country, winning it’s first major conference championship in 1934. Conference realignment saw most of the MVC convert into the Big Eight Conference, in which the university’s football team would spend the next 67 years. This coincided with a long dip in fortunes on the football field, a trend that would continue really until the great Bill Snyder took over the reins at the end of the 1980s.
Kansas State has been known as the Wildcats since 1920. Then head coach Charlie Bachman, who would go on to earn his way into the College Football Hall of Fame for his coaching prowess, officially bestowed the name as the team’s official mascot and it has endured to this day. Adopting the color ‘Royal Purple’ since almost the team’s inception, K-State are one of just a handful of colleges to have just one official school colour and have paired it religiously with white or silver. The colour was chosen by a student committee, who selected it due to “both because of the beauty of royal purple, and because it could not be found in use in any other school”.
The Wildcats would eventually join the Big 12 after the 1995 season along with all the other members of the Big Eight, essentially merging with half of the former Southwest Conference. Since then they have been a consistent force in their new home despite an apparent resource gap compared to rivals old and new. Kansas State have cemented themselves as a football program to be respected and one that has enjoyed some success since the turn of the century, largely thanks to the hiring of one man.
Bill Snyder: A Wildcat Legend
Kansas State has a deep history. But when it comes to football, Bill Snyder was the man who put this team on the national radar. Back in the 1980s he was Iowa’s offensive coordinator, helping Hayden Fry turn the Hawkeyes into a two-time Big Ten champion. And in 1989 he became the 32nd coach in the Wildcats’ history.
It would prove to be a pivotal hire. Snyder would spend 17 years in Manhattan until he ‘retired’ in 2005 at 66 years old. Beginning with a 1-10 record in the Big Eight, he would gradually make Kansas State a strong program, reeling off ten 9-win or more seasons in eleven seasons at one point. The Wildcats enjoyed four trips to the Big 12 title game, winning the conference in 2003, and went to an incredible eleven bowl games in a row. Snyder brought exciting offensive football to Manhattan, recruiting the likes of quarterback Michael Bishop who finished runner up for the Heisman Trophy in 1998 and Darren Sproles, who would go on to be a superstar in the NFL.
Snyder would come out of retirement in 2009 to lead the Wildcats for another decade, coaching until he was 80 years old. Whilst not as successful as his first stint, he did add another conference title to the trophy cabinet while taking the program to the postseason eight more times. At the time of his permanent retirement, Snyder had accounted for more than 40% of the school’s wins in its entire history, leaving with a final record of 215-117-1. More importantly, he had re-established K-State as a team routinely ranked before handing over the keys to a worthy successor…
Chris Klieman - The New Era
How you replace a legend is one of the most difficult jobs in sport. But Kansas State, at the second time of trying, nailed it with the hire of Chris Klieman. Eyebrows were raised when the Wildcats went to the FCS for their new head coach, but Klieman had earned an astonishing record at North Dakota State, winning four National Championships and 69 out of 75 games. You never want to be ‘the guy after the guy’, but Klieman has done more than admirably, winning eight games his first year and taking K-State from strength to strength despite the Big 12 expanding rapidly.
Five bowl games in six years speaks for itself, as does a Big 12 Championship in 2022. The six year, $17m contract he earned upon being hired now looks like a bargain, and Wildcat fans will be expecting another run at a conference title in 2025. Success like that would see this program earn a spot in the College Football Playoffs – an ambition that is well within Kansas State’s reach should things fall their way this upcoming season.
To achieve that, K-State will once again turn to an explosive offense. Led by dual threat quarterback Avery Johnson, Klieman has not been shy in giving his QB weapons to work with via the transfer portal with receivers Jaron Tibbs (Purdue) and Jerand Bradley (Boston College) both expected to have big roles. They’ll face a tough opponent in Iowa State as ‘Farmageddon’ heads to the Emerald Isle to kick off the season, but get past this stern early test and the Wildcats will very much be hopeful of more magic in Manhattan in 2025.
SIMON CARROLL
LEAD WRITER/HEAD OF CONTENT
PREVIOUSLY THE FOUNDER OF NFL DRAFT UK, SIMON HAS BEEN COVERING COLLEGE FOOTBALL AND THE NFL DRAFT SINCE 2009. BASED IN MANCHESTER, SIMON IS ALSO CO-CREATOR & WEEKLY GUEST OF THE COLLAPSING POCKET PODCAST AND COVERS THE JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS FOR SB NATION.