These are the coaches that Michigan State needs to look at first

These two coaches could possibly be considered in the top tier of candidates based on their resumes and other factors.

Coaching career summary

Chris Klieman is the head football coach at Kansas State University. He previously served as the head football coach at North Dakota State University from 2014 to 2018.

Klieman began his coaching career as an assistant coach at Western Illinois University (1994-1996), Kansas University (1997), and Missouri State University (1999). In 2005, Klieman was named the head coach at Loras College, where he led the team to a 3-7 record. He would later become a defensive coordinator at Northern Iowa.

In 2014, Klieman was named the head coach at North Dakota State University. He quickly turned the program around, leading the Bison to four consecutive NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) national championships from 2014 to 2017. Klieman also led the Bison to a perfect 16-0 record in 2018.

In 2019, Klieman was hired as the head football coach at Kansas State University. He led the Wildcats to a 3-9 record in his first season, but the team improved to 4-6 in 2020 and 8-5 in 2021. In 2022, Klieman led Kansas State to a 10-3 record and a win in the Liberty Bowl, which was the program’s first bowl game victory since 2012.

Klieman’s overall coaching record is 102-33, with a winning percentage of .756. He is one of only four coaches to have won four or more FCS national championships.

Reasons why MSU fans would like him as their coach

Chris Klieman’s hire would be interesting because he is considered a coach who can develop players to play to their full potential and he has proven he can win big games when competing against teams that are not superior talent. At the FCS level, he won four national championships showing that he can coach in games with a lot on the line and even at the FBS level, in his first season at Kansas State he won on the road at Mississippi State and defeated No. 5 Oklahoma. He in season two, defeated Oklahoma again on the road when the Sooners were ranked No. 3 in the country. In 2021, he and his Wildcats won their first bowl game as Klieman as their head coach as they defeated LSU in the Texas Bowl. However, 2022 was his best season as the head coach of Kansas State.

After an impressive non-conference win against Missouri, Klieman and his team for the third time defeated Oklahoma and once again the Sooner were ranked in the top 10 and it was on the road. He and the Wildcats then defeated No. 9 Oklahoma State by 48 points in a shutout and the most impressive win last season for him and his team was a thrilling Big 12 Championship victory over No. 3 ranked TCU in overtime.

The only drawbacks would be that at the FBS level, has not won more than 10 games in a season and is 1-2 in bowl games. Even though he has defeated ranked teams, he has also lost at home to Tulane, Iowa State, Arkansas State, and West Virginia. However, that is looking at his overall coaching record under a microscope and picking some negatives when most of his time at Kansas State besides 2020 where he and his team lost his last five games has been successful.

Michigan State could look to him as potentially being their next head coach as they do their due diligence in the head coaching search.

Coaching career summary

Charles Huff is currently the head coach at Marshall University. Huff served as an assistant coach at Hampton University (2010), Maryland University (2009), and Vanderbilt University (2011). In 2012, Huff went to the NFL to coach as he joined the Buffalo Bills as an assistant running backs coach.

He then spent one season at Western Michigan University (2013) as the running backs coach before joining the Penn State Nittany Lions (2014-2017) in the same role. At Penn State, Huff helped develop Nittany Lions running back Saquon Barkley into one of the best players in college football.

In 2018, Huff joined the Mississippi State Bulldogs as the assistant head coach, run-game coordinator, and running backs coach. He then spent one season at the University of Alabama as the associate head coach and running backs coach before being hired as the head coach at Marshall University in 2021.

In his first two seasons at Marshall, Huff has led the Thundering Herd to a 16-10 record and two bowl appearances. He has been praised for his ability to recruit top talent and develop players. Huff is also known for his innovative offensive scheme.

Huff’s coaching career is still in its early stages, but he has already shown that he is one of the brightest young minds in coaching. He is a strong candidate to one day coach at a Power Five school like Michigan State.

Reasons why MSU fans would like him as their coach

Charles Huff becoming the next head football coach at Michigan State could end up being very beneficial for the Spartans football program. He has coached at many places including Maryland, Vanderbilt, Western Michigan, Penn State, Mississippi State, and Alabama. He has been the head coach of Marshall since 2021 and has had some impressive victories while the coach of the Thundering Herd.

In his first season, he led Marshall to seven wins with road victories against Navy, North Texas, and Florida Atlantic. In his second season, on the road, he and his Thundering Herd defeated No. 8 Notre Dame and was considered a huge upset. They won their last five games of the season as well including a bowl victory over UConn in the Myrtle Beach Bowl. This season, Huff has the Thundering Herd 4-0 with an impressive win over Virginia Tech.

Huff was named the Recruiter of the Year by  Rivals for the 2021 recruiting cycle and the National Recruiter of the Year by 247 Sports for the 2021 recruiting cycle as well.

He would in theory boost the recruiting for Michigan State tremendously and has ties to the state of Michigan as he has coached at Western Michigan and has coached in the Big Ten as he was also an assistant coach at both Maryland and Penn State. He does not have any head coaching experience at a Power Five school like the top-tier candidates already mentioned but he could be a candidate that the Spartans look at for their head coaching position.