Kansas State football coach Chris Klieman on the 2025 game in Ireland
Kansas State football coach Chris Klieman talks about the Wildcats’ 2025 season opener against Iowa State in Dublin, Ireland.
K-State Athletics
MANHATTAN — When John Anthony, co-founder of the Aer Lingus Classic approached Gene Taylor about bringing the Kansas State’s football team to Dublin, Ireland, for a game to open the 2025 college season, he knew that was only half the battle.
Taylor, K-State’s director of athletics, was all for the idea, but with an important caveat. The real question was how head coach Chris Klieman would feel, not only about sacrificing a home game, but also to move the whole operation overseas.
So, when Klieman gave his blessing for the Aug. 23 game against Big 12 rival Iowa State at Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Anthony made sure to give him a shoutout.
“Anyone who has worked with football coaches, he understated how their thinking might go on these things,” Anthony said with a smile during Friday’s news conference in Manhattan to promote the game. “But at the end of a thorough conversation, he quickly saw the value for his team, for his student-athletes, to have really a transformational experience, and that’s what he’s about.
“And so, thank you very much for accepting this invitation.”
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That might be an oversimplification of the process that brought K-State and Iowa State together to renew their Farmageddon rivalry on foreign soil. While Taylor enjoyed a first-hand game experience in Ireland as a former Naval Academy administrator, he still had some doubts.
“I was still a little reluctant. I’ll be honest with you,” Taylor said. “But I said, ‘You know, I’m going to talk to coach Klieman and we’re going to see.’ “
Sure enough, Klieman was less than enthusiastic about the idea at first. But then he took Anthony’s advice and sought out other coaches who had taken teams to Ireland. The 2025 game will mark the fourth game with Aer Lingus as the title sponsor and the 10th overall in Ireland.
“Gene came to me probably a couple of months ago, and football coaches are kind of a creature of habit and routine, and I didn’t know if it would be a great,” Klieman said. “I knew it would be a great opportunity, but I’m like, ‘OK, how does that affect a lot of things?’
“And I reached out to some coaches that I know in the profession really well that had been in that game, and the common theme was, if we could do it every year, we’d do it every year. And that resonated with me.”
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So did the reaction from Klieman’s own staff.
“I visited with a couple of our coaches, the Irishman coach (Conor) Riley, and he was like, ‘I’ll go if you won’t,’ and so it was going to be received really well with our staff,” Klieman said. “And then when we surprised our players with it, you could see the energy and the excitement of our guys.
“And it’s a once-in-a lifetime opportunity for these kids to experience something that they may never experience again in their lifetime. And for me, it’s an opportunity for my wife and I to go experience something that we haven’t experienced before.”
Indeed, Anthony pointed to the game’s tagline: “Much more than a game.”
And that was the impetus for Friday’s news conference, namely, to promote travel packages designed to bring as many fans as possible to Ireland for the game.
“I think everybody who goes can expect one of the best weeks of their life,” Anthony said. “So, we’ve talked about the players and that’s obviously what we’ve talked about most with (Klieman), but for every fan, it’s just It’s a trip of a lifetime.”
Arne Green is based in Salina and covers Kansas State University sports for the Gannett network. He can be reached at agreen@gannett.com or on Twitter at @arnegreen.