MANHATTAN, Kan. – Kansas State head coach Chris Klieman announced Friday that current Wildcat assistant coaches Collin Klein and Blake Seiler will return for the 2019 football season. Klein will serve as the quarterbacks coach, while Seiler will tutor the Wildcat defensive line.

“I am pleased that Blake and Collin will remain a part of our staff here at Kansas State,” Klieman said. “They both are tremendous young football coaches who I have had the chance to get to know over the last several weeks while recruiting, and they provide our program with some continuity and familiarity. As former Wildcat players, they bleed purple, and I am excited for what they will bring to our staff.”

The 2018 season marked the second for Klein as a full-time assistant coach tutoring the quarterbacks at K-State, and for the second-straight year he was forced to play multiple quarterbacks due to injury. A majority of the starts this past season went to sophomore Skylar Thompson, who threw for 1,391 yards and nine touchdowns in 10 starts. Thompson enters his junior campaign ranked fifth in career completion percentage (59.45) and ninth in career passing efficiency (130.56).

A Heisman Trophy finalist in 2012, Klein began his coaching career in 2014 when he was an assistant director of recruiting at K-State, while he was an offensive graduate assistant in 2015. Klein then went to Northern Iowa to be the quarterbacks coach in 2016 and returned to Manhattan for the same position in 2017.

Seiler, who served as the defensive coordinator for the first time in 2018, was also in his second year coaching the Wildcat linebackers last season. He will now return to the to the front line of defense after serving as the K-State defensive ends coach from 2013-16. In his inaugural season as coordinator, Seiler’s defensive unit ranked third in the Big 12 in scoring defense (25.4 points per game) and fourth in total defense (403.4 yards per game) at the end of the regular season.

A native of Goddard, Kansas, Seiler was a defensive lineman for the Wildcats from 2003 to 2006. After working as an engineer for two years, Seiler returned to football as a quality control coach at K-State in 2009 and 2010, and a defensive graduate assistant in 2011 and 2012 before becoming a full-time coach.

The rest of Klieman’s coaching staff will be announced as it becomes official.