K-State fans furious with Chris Klieman after wild 4th-down decision costs Wildcats

Chris Klieman brought an aggressive mindset from Manhattan, Kansas, to Dublin, Ireland, but it didn’t pay off for his Kansas State Wildcats as they fell 24-21 to Iowa State in Week 0 of the 2025 college football season. 

Klieman went for it on fourth down four times, but his team converted just once. The most daring of his fourth-down decisions came at 8:19 in the fourth quarter with his team trailing 17-14 and facing fourth-and-1 from its own 30-yard line. Klieman and first-year offensive coordinator Matt Wells kept the ball in junior quarterback Avery Johnson’s hands, but he was stopped for no gain. 

Iowa State took advantage of the field position, cashing in for a touchdown on just four plays. Though Kansas State quickly answered that score with a touchdown of its own, the Wildcats never got the ball back again and fell to 0-1 in a season that carries Big 12 title and College Football Playoff aspirations. 

Though he has led Kansas State to four consecutive winning seasons, a Big 12 championship in 2022, and at least nine wins in each of the last three years, K-State fans were quickly fed up with Klieman on Saturday. 

With Johnson getting stopped for no gain and K-State giving the ball back to Iowa State already in field goal territory, Klieman surrendered 12.1% win probability on that play, the second-largest win probability swing on a single non-scoring play in the game, only behind K-State running back Dylan Edwards’ muffed punt in the first quarter that gave Iowa State the ball at the K-State eight-yard line. Iowa State then fumbled the ball back a few plays later. 

While fans crushed Klieman for the fourth-quarter fourth-down decision, it wasn’t his only questionable call in a big spot. Early in the second quarter, the Wildcats opted to go for it on fourth-and-1 from the Iowa State seven-yard line, and running back Joe Jackson was stopped for no gain. 

Had Klieman cashed that drive in for a field goal, the Wildcats may not have been chasing the points in the fourth quarter. In an analytically driven era of football, fourth-down decisions have gotten increasingly aggressive, but this game from Klieman was still a bit of a surprise.

While fans leave Week 0 with a bad taste in their mouth, Kansas State will still be in the mix to compete for the Big 12 crown. Now that the College Football Playoff is expanded to 12 teams, one loss, even to a hated rival, isn’t a season-ender.