Kansas State fans' belief in Collin Klein runs deep. Their faith in him has been built through years of success as one of the program's best all-time quarterbacks and one of the architects of two of the program's three Big 12 Championships—one as a player and one as the Wildcats' offensive coordinator.

He has played and coached under former K-State coach Bill Snyder, naturally drawing comparisons to the K-State legend whose name is on the stadium Klein will now coach in. Klein has been building for this opportunity for years. He made the difficult choice to leave K-State and accept the offensive coordinator position at Texas A&M following the 2023 season, knowing it was an important step in his growth to help prepare him for this very moment.

The sentiment in Manhattan is that success is imminent under Klein. But how long should it take? What are realistic expectations for Klein in year one? What would constitute a successful first season? To answer those questions, we take a deep dive into the history of first-year power conference coaches in college football—specifically examining coaches who had no head coaching experience at any level before landing a head coaching job at a power conference program. What we found is that many of the top coaches in the sport currently meet that exact criteria.

What the projections say about K-State in 2026

First, let's establish what some of the outside expectations are for K-State heading into the 2026 season. The odds in Vegas have consistently set the over/under on K-State's win total at 8.5.

Brian Fremeau's FEI projections model K-State at 8.8 wins for the upcoming season, third most in the Big 12 Conference behind only Texas Tech and Utah. Fremeau's model gives K-State a 58% chance of winning nine or more games, and a 79% chance of winning eight or more.

The SP+ from Bill Connelly on ESPN projects K-State to win 8.2 games in 2026, fourth-most in the Big 12 behind Texas Tech, BYU and Utah. K-State's schedule looks friendly on paper. According to the SP+, the Wildcats' strength of schedule ranks 69th nationally and is the second easiest in the conference behind only Texas Tech, whose schedule ranks 71st. However, the models also believed K-State had one of the easiest schedules heading into the 2024 season, only for some of K-State's opponents projected at the bottom of the league to surge to the top, including Arizona State, BYU and Colorado.

 A historic look at first-year power conference head coaches

My goal with this piece is to provide an in-depth perspective of what first-year head coaches have done at a power conference school. In order to do this, I eliminated any individuals who began their head coaching career at a Group of Five school, Division II school or FCS level. For example, I didn't include Chris Klieman because he had already been a head coach at North Dakota State prior to taking the K-State job.

Urban Meyer began his head coaching career at Bowling Green so he is not included. Kyle Whittingham, the current head coach at Michigan, spent 21 seasons as Utah's head coach. However, the Utes were in the Mountain West Conference when he began his career there, so I do not include him as his first season did not occur in a power conference league. Nick Saban spent one season as the head coach at Toledo before moving to the power conference level, so he's not included. Rhett Lashlee was tempting to include given SMU's upward trajectory, but I didn't include him. Lashlee went 7-6 in his first season at SMU, and has gone 31-10 in the three seasons since, including 14-2 in conference play since moving to the ACC two years ago.

Thirty five of the 68 active power-four head football coaches began their head coaching careers at a power conference school. In other words, they had previously spent their entire career as an assistant coach before landing a head coaching job at a power four or power five program. In this exercise, I examine 29 of the 35 coaches (six, including Klein, are heading into year one in 2026), providing their record in year one on the job, their career record as a head coach since, as well as what the program's record was the season prior to the coach taking the job. I also include a few additional coaches who are no longer a head coach, but I found notable to highlight. As you scroll down in this article, you'll see multiple tables that highlight all of this data in a friendly way visually.

What I discovered is that the majority of college football's most successful head coaches did not have to make pit stops as a head coach at a lower-level school, but rather got their start as a head coach at a power four or power five program. And why is that important? Because that's what Klein is doing at K-State.

Now, it's also important to recognize not all jobs are created equal. Many of these coaches took over at prestigious programs with substantial resources, giving them a leg up to jump-start their careers.

Additionally, not all eras are the same. It was different building a program 10 to 20 years ago compared to today's era of the transfer portal and NIL. So the following isn't an exact science by any means.

The top names in the sport who began their head coaching career at a power conference school include Dan Lanning at Oregon, Kirby Smart at Georgia, Ryan Day at Ohio State, Marcus Freeman at Notre Dame just to name a few.

Klein coached under Mike Elko the past two seasons at Texas A&M. Elko is quickly rising up the industry. His first head coaching opportunity came at Duke in 2022. He led them to a 9-4 season, a major turnaround after the Blue Devils went 3-9 the year prior to Elko taking over. Elko is now 35-16 over four seasons as a head coach, including guiding the Aggies to a College Football Playoff berth with Klein as his offensive coordinator in 2025.

In the Big 12 specifically, there's Kilani Sitake, who is entering his 11th season as the BYU head coach. For clarity, I included Sitake despite BYU being independent at the time he was named the coach, largely because the Cougars were playing a power conference schedule. Sitake went 9-4 in year one, matching the program's record the year before he took over. Sitake is now 84-45 overall (65%) in 10 seasons at BYU, including 23-4 the last two years.

Joey McGuire took over Texas Tech in 2022 after the Red Raiders fired Matt Wells midway through the 2021 season. McGuire went 8-5 in year one, and is 35-18 overall in four seasons in Lubbock, including taking the Red Raiders to the College Football Playoff in 2025.

Kenny Dillingham inherited a mess of a program at Arizona State after spending several seasons as a successful offensive coordinator at programs such as Auburn, Florida State and Oregon. Dillingham went 3-9 in year one, but led the Sun Devils to an 11-3 season and a Big 12 Championship in year two. He is 22-17 over three seasons in Tempe and is one of the industry's rising stars.

On the other end of this is Dave Aranda, a highly successful defensive coordinator at LSU and Wisconsin before being named the head coach at Baylor. His first season with the Bears was in 2020, which makes things complicated given the circumstances of the pandemic. Given that, I want to highlight both the 2020 season and a more normalized 2021 season for Aranda. He went 2-7 during the pandemic season, but led them to a 12-2 season and a Big 12 Championship in 2021. However, since that season, Aranda has gone just 22-28 and is currently on the hot seat in Waco.

Some might look at Kliff Kingsbury as a correlation to Klein. Kingsbury was a former star quarterback who played under one of the program's best coaches in Mike Leach and returned to his alma mater to be the Texas Tech head coach after becoming a headline name as the offensive coordinator of Texas A&M during the Johnny Manziel era. Kingsbury went 8-5 in year one, but followed that up with four losing seasons over the next five years, finishing his six years in Lubbock with a 35-40 record.

Barry Odom played at Missouri, then became an assistant coach there and eventually the program's defensive coordinator. In 2016, Odom was promoted from defensive coordinator to head coach, replacing Gary Pinkel, the school's all-time leader in career wins. Pinkel went 5-7 in his final season prior to Odom taking over. Odom went 4-8 in year one followed by a 21-17 record over the next three seasons and was ultimately fired after a 25-25 record during his time in Columbia. Odom is now the head coach at Purdue.

The 29 power four head coaches who meet the criteria outlined above and have now served at least one season as a head coach averaged a first-year record of approximately 7-6. Fourteen of the 29 won eight or more games in year one, including Aranda, as I'm not including the pandemic season in the data if a coach's first season came in 2020. Ten won nine-plus games in their first year. Six of those 10 have went on to make the College Football Playoff at least once during their coaching tenures. Six won double-digit games, including Lanning, Day, Lincoln Riley, Brett Bielema, Aranda (counting the 2021 season as year 1) and Fran Brown recently at Syracuse.

The data tells us that if you win eight or more games during your first season, you're likely going to have a great career. The 14 active coaches who won eight or more games in year one have gone on to combine for a 1,003-426 record overall, a 70% winning percentage. Nine of the 14 have career winning percentages over 65%, while only four have won under 60% of their games. Even at that, the floor is relatively high, with all but one (Aranda at 49% career winning %) at 50% or better. And if you want to draw a parralel to K-State, Klieman won eight games in year one in 2019, ended up leading the Wildcats to a Big 12 Championship in 2022 and finished his seven seasons in Manhattan having won 61% of his games (64% if you exclude the pandemic season).

Winning eight games in year one isn't the only indicator depending on circumstances. Bob Stoops won seven in year one and went on to win 10 or more games in 14 different seasons. Steve Sarkisian went 5-7 in year one and is now regarded as one of the game's best coaches. James Franklin went 6-7 in year one at Vanderbilt and has become a very good coach. Mike Gundy went 4-7 in year one at Oklahoma State and became the program's all-time winningest coach with a 170-90 record. Meanwhile, Venables only won six games in year one, but has won 10 games twice in two of his four seasons in Norman.

Twelve of the 29 coaches had losing seasons in year one, but the majority of those were at programs that have struggled historically. For example, James Franklin and Clark Lea have both executed masterful turnarounds at Vanderbilt over the past two decades. Franklin went 6-7 in his first season after the program went 2-10 the season before he took over, while Lea went 2-10 in year one, but led the Commodores to 10 wins in 2025.

Other coaches with losing records in year one include Sarkisian, who inherited a team that went 0-12 the year before, and Dillingham, who took over a mess left behind by former coach Herman Edwards. The only real outliers here are Venables, who went 6-7 in year one at Oklahoma, a program rich with tradition, and Manny Diaz, who went 6-7 in year one, though the Hurricanes were just 7-6 the season before he took over.

Oher notable first-year power-conference coaches (not currently active)

Klein comes from the Snyder coaching tree, so I think it's worthwhile noting how his former assistants have gone on to perform as head coaches, regardless of level. For example, Jim Leavitt took the head coaching job at South Florida in 1997, the program's first year playing college football. Leavitt built that program from the ground up and was a major success, producing a 95-57 record over 13 seasons while winning eight or more games in seven different seasons.

We've already outlined how successful Bob Stoops has been, and Venables appears to be tracking well as he gains experience at Oklahoma.

Mark Mangino did a remarkable job turning KU around. While he went 2-10 in year one, he ultimately led them to a 12-1 season in 2007 and an Orange Bowl victory. Mangino is the first KU coach since 1966 to finish his career with the Jayhawks with a winning record overall.

Brett Bielema has found success at multiple stops during his career, despite a bump in he road at Arkansas. Bielema has 134 victories in his career, won 74% of his games in seven seasons at Wisconsin, and has rebuilt the Illinois program, going 19-7 the past two seasons.

Ricky Rahne won 10 games at Old Dominion in 2025. The only coaches who didn't perform well were Mike Stoops at Arizona, and Phil Bennett, who became a head coach late in his career and took on a struggling SMU program.

Snyder coaching tree and how they performed in their first year as a head coach (regardless of level it was at)

Conclusion

I've gone on the record of predicting K-State to go 10-2 in Klein's first season in Manhattan. That prediction is based on a combination of the Wildcats' schedule I believe to be favorable and my belief in Klein.

However, given some of the injuries along the offensive line, coupled with the data pulled above, I'm more inclined to believe 9-3 is more likely. Nine or more wins would be a major success, and would be a great indicator that Klein is on his way to being a star in the business, while eight or more wins based on the above data would also be considered a nice achievement.

However, I have an unwavering belief in Klein. I think the Wildcats win nine-plus games in 2026, and the entire Big 12 Conference will soon recognize that K-State will be a consistent force in the Big 12 for many years to come.