Sport(s) | Football |
---|---|
Current position | |
Title | Quarterbacks coach |
Team | Kansas State |
Conference | Big 12 |
Biographical details | |
Born |
Loveland, Colorado |
September 19, 1989
Playing career | |
2008–12 | Kansas State |
Position(s) | Quarterback |
Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |
2014–15 | Kansas State (Defensive QC/GA) |
2016 | Northern Iowa (Quarterbacks Coach) |
2017-present | Kansas State (Quarterbacks Coach) |
Accomplishments and honors | |
Awards | |
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Collin Klein (born September 19, 1989) is an American college football coach and former quarterback who played for the Kansas State Wildcats. He appeared as a wide receiver for Kansas State during the 2009 season, and made his first career start at quarterback in a win against the Texas Longhorns during the 2010 season.
Klein was born on September 19, 1989, to Doug and Kelly Klein. He played football for Loveland High School in Colorado and set school records for completion percentage and all-purpose yards. His younger brother, Kyle, was a wide receiver for Kansas State. His grandfather is a barber in Estes Park, Colorado.
When Klein was in kindergarten, he became interested in learning to play the piano, and began taking lessons the next year. He would later learn how to play both the mandolin and the violin.
Redshirted in 2008, Klein played either at wide receiver or on special teams for the entire 2009 season, catching six passes for 38 yards and one touchdown. He returned to the quarterback position in 2010, earning spot duty early in the year before making his first career start against the Texas Longhorns, a game which the Wildcats won 39–14 and in which Klein rushed for 127 yards and two touchdowns; he completed only two of four attempted passes. Klein was one of two quarterbacks in the Big 12 with at least two 100-yard rushing games in the season.
Klein became the Wildcats' first-string quarterback at the beginning of the 2011 season, taking over from a graduating Carson Coffman. In the team's spring game, he passed for 358 yards and five touchdowns.
Klein led Kansas State to victories over their first seven opponents of the season—the Wildcats' first 7–0 start since the year 1999—including four consecutive games in which Kansas State was considered an underdog. On September 24, 2011, Klein led his team to a 28–24 win against a Miami Hurricanes team coming off a win against the defending Sugar Bowl champion Ohio State Buckeyes. The next week, Klein passed for 146 yards in Kansas State's 36–35 upset of the Baylor Bears, a team then ranked fifteenth in the nation by the Associated Press. That game would mark the first time since 2004 that a Wildcat quarterback rushed and passed for over a hundred yards in a single game.