Kansas State Wildcats working on bigger contracts for Chris Klieman and Jerome Tang

It goes without saying that Kansas State’s two most prominent coaches deserve a raise and contract extension.

Chris Klieman is coming off a memorable football season in which he led the Wildcats to 10 victories and their first Big 12 championship in a decade.

Jerome Tang is fresh off a 26-win campaign that saw the K-State men’s basketball team make it all the way to the Elite Eight.

Together, they helped deliver one of the most successful athletic years in recent memory to Manhattan. Now it is time for athletic director Gene Taylor to reward each of them. That process has already begun. He expects to have a new deal in place for both coaches in the near future.

“With Coach Klieman, we’re still working through that,” Taylor said this week during a Q&A session with fans. “That’s probably going to be completed shortly. Once you get into the discussion of the financial arrangements, then you have to go into the language of the contract and that takes a while.”

Finalizing new contracts for Klieman and his assistant coaches has been a slow process.

Taylor approved raises for every coach on Klieman’s staff during the winter, but only one new contract has been finalized as of mid April. New wide receivers coach Matthew Middleton signed a two-year deal that will pay him $325,000 this season and $375,000 next season. The rest of the staff is expected to sign their contracts in the coming weeks, likely around the same time as Klieman.

It will be fascinating to see how much extra money K-State devotes to Klieman. He is currently earning $3.6 million a year, but that number will increase to $3.9 million a year for the duration of his deal in 2028.

Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy is believed to be the highest paid coach in the Big 12 at $7.5 million per year.

“If you look at all of our salaries, we’ve typically been towards the bottom half of the Big 12,” Taylor said. “And that’s where we compare ourselves. We don’t really compare ourselves with the Big 10 and how the SEC is doing. How are we salary-wise for coaches and staff within the Big 12? I think from an owner’s perspective, we want to be up in the upper half, if not better.”

Tang also appears poised to make a large jump in salary from the $2.1 million he earned in his first season.

His salary increases by $100,000 each year until his deal ends following the 2027-28 basketball season, capping off at $2.6 million. Odds are good he will be making more than that in Year 2.

Taylor expects those conversations to begin soon. They did not mention a deal during the season.

“We’ll probably sit down and start having those conversations and see what makes sense, what’s a fair agreement,” Taylor said of Tang. “(That’s) to reward him for the success he had, but (also to make) sure he’s comfortable. We want him here for a while, and he wants to stay here. Those things take a little while. But it was certainly something we’ll start pretty soon.”