K-State defensive ends coach Blake Seiler leaving Wildcats for West Virginia
The Kansas State football team once again has an opening on its coaching staff.
Blake Seiler, a former K-State player who has worked for the Wildcats as an assistant in various capacities since 2009, is leaving to become the linebackers coach at West Virginia.
Pete Thamel, of Yahoo! Sports, first reported the news.
Seiler’s departure is a surprising and significant loss for the Wildcats. Seiler spent last season as defensive coordinator under Bill Snyder, and Seiler was set to coach defensive ends next season under new coach Chris Klieman.
The new role came with less responsibility and a pay cut (from $440,000 to $300,000), but Seiler said it was an easy decision to stay and work under Klieman in late December.
“Cut me with a knife and it comes out purple,” Seiler said then. “We are still working through all the details there, but this is my home, this is my alma mater and K-State is a special place to me.”
He apparently had a change of heart at some point over the past month and a half.
Seiler departs K-State after having played for the Wildcats as a defensive end from 2003-06. He got into coaching three years later after originally pursuing a career as a structural engineer at Cessna Aircraft Company in Wichita.
And he never looked back. Seiler started out as a quality-control coach under Snyder and rose all the way up to defensive coordinator, coaching defensive ends and linebackers along the way.
The Wildcats showed promise on defense last season under Seiler, allowing 403 yards and 25.4 points per game. He seemed like a potential candidate to keep the job under Klieman, but Klieman instead hired Ted Monachino, who abruptly left for a job with the Chicago Bears.
K-State then hired Scottie Hazelton away from Wyoming as defensive coordinator last week.
Seiler grew up in Goddard, Kan., and attended Bishop Carroll High School. He was one of K-State’s most active recruiters under Snyder and had good connections throughout the Sunflower State.
He will now take those skills to West Virginia, where he will work for new coach Neal Brown, as Klieman looks to hire a new defensive ends coach.