Klein no stranger to Aggies
New coordinator helped kick-start ‘Johnny Football’
COLLEGE STATION — Kansas State’s Collin Klein played a role in fellow quarterback Johnny Manziel winning the Heisman Trophy — and not as one of three Heisman finalists along with Texas A&M’s Manziel in 2012.
Klein’s part in A&M’s second Heisman requires backing up a little more than a year prior to Manziel, Klein and Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o standing together under the bright lights of a Midtown Manhattan stage in New York City. It backs up to the brightest lights of Manhattan, Kan., at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.
When Klein bulled his way into the end zone in the fourth overtime for his fifth rushing touchdown in KSU’s wild 53-50 victory over A&M on Nov. 12, 2011, it effectively snapped the back of the four-season Mike Sherman era in College Station.
“You put so much into it, you need to come home with a victory,” a dejected Sherman said afterward. “We didn’t do that.”
The Aggies were ranked No. 7 two weeks into that fateful 2011 season but dropped to 5-5 overall and 3-4 in Big 12 play with the loss to Klein and KSU. By that point, A&M had blown double-digit second-half leads in four of its five losses.
KSU fans shouted in unison to the Aggies leaving the field that night in Manhattan, “Big 12 football! Big 12 football!” A&M at the time was exiting the Big 12 for the Southeastern Conference, and the Aggies moved on from Sherman
at the end of the 2011 regular season, in part based on what happened that nigh.
A&M turned to the University of Houston’s Kevin Sumlin, who turned to a dynamic, free-styling playmaker in Manziel to run the Aggies’ offense during their first year in the SEC. The result was an 11-2 record — still their best mark as an SEC member — and Manziel’s Heisman.
It’s highly doubtful the more conservative Sherman, who redshirted Manziel in 2011 behind future NFL quarterback Ryan Tannehill, would have given free rein to the frenzied Johnny Football as Sumlin did that first season in the SEC.
The recollection arises because A&M has hired Klein, 34, from his alma mater to help do what Sherman, Sumlin and Manziel did not: win a league title. A&M fired Jimbo Fisher on Nov. 12 — 12 years to the day after the Aggies lost in four overtimes at KSU — and hired Mike Elko from Duke on Nov. 26 to try to kick-start the lurching program.
Elko’s most prominent early hire is his new offensive coordinator, though as of Saturday, Klein had not been officially announced by A&M. Still, the 2012 Heisman finalist is in College Station, plugging away with early signing day approaching Dec. 20.
Klein, who grew up in Loveland, Colo., has spent the past two seasons as KSU’s offensive coordinator, and the Wildcats’ improvement on that side of the ball has been striking. KSU in 2021 ranked 76th nationally in scoring offense with 27.5 points per game prior to Klein’s running the show. This season, the Wildcats are tied for 10th nationally with 37.7 points per game.
Following Kansas State’s 42-20 victory over LSU in the Texas Bowl two years ago, KSU running back Deuce Vaughn, now with the Dallas Cowboys, explained how Klein communicated with his players while serving as the Wildcats’ interim offensive coordinator in the bowl.
“Coach Klein told us before the game that if you see something on the field, speak up,” Vaughn said. “He said, ‘Tell your position coach, and he’ll get back to me, and that’s how we’ll dictate how we play this game.’ That (led) to aggressiveness. … It came from us relaying back to our coaches and them giving us the driver’s wheel.”
KSU, whose balanced offense this season has produced 246 yards per game through the air and 200 on the ground, has been especially stout inside the 20-yard line. The Wildcats lead the nation in red zone touchdown rate (78.7 percent), exhibiting some of the same toughness Klein showed in short-yardage situations as KSU’s starting quarterback in 2011 and 2012.
In the days prior to the Wildcats’ four-overtime victory over the Aggies in 2011, A&M defensive coordinator Tim DeRuyter mulled ways to slow Klein, much better known for his running than passing.
“It’s really surprising how fast he is,” DeRuyter said at the time. “He’s a long-legged, long-striding guy, and he’s able to run away from people. He also has really good vision and breaks a lot of tackles, so he’s a major concern for us. He runs the running game as well as any quarterback out there.”
While the flamboyant Manziel flamed out in the NFL and has spent much of the past decade partying, Klein lowered his head after not making the NFL and went about climbing his way through the college coaching ranks.
He was undrafted in 2013, and Texans coach Gary Kubiak offered to sign Klein as a free agent. Klein, who insisted on playing quarterback in the pros, was not signed to a contract following a rookie camp in Houston. Still, Kubiak was impressed with the future coach.
“The first thing that jumped out to me is he knew exactly what he was doing after coming out of a meeting,” Kubiak said following the camp. “That tells you how sharp he is. All that other stuff you can work on.”
Now Klein, who’s been at KSU for much of the past decade, earns a chance to share some of his knowledge with the Aggies in the SEC.
“In this day and age, you’ve got to be very multiple and very adaptable in what you do on offense,” Elko said of his plans for the offense under Klein. “At the end of the day, we’ve got to be a group that knows how to attack defenses, get the ball in our playmakers’ hands and allow them to be successful.”