Have a story on NDSU defensive coordinator Chris Klieman that’s set to go in Sunday’s Forum, but wanted to get out a couple of interesting comments on the second-year Bison coach. Talked with Big 12 Conference commissioner Bob Bowlsby, who was the athletic director at Northern Iowa when Klieman was a safety with the Panthers. Bowlsby knows the family because both are from Waterloo and Klieman’s dad was the high school football coach at Waterloo Columbus, where Chris as the team’s quarterback led it to the state championship game.

Anyway, Bowlsby said Chris Klieman was “never the fastest kid on the field or the biggest kid on the field but the most important guy a lot of times.” That probably says a lot to how an average player can ascend to the ranks of one of the top coordinators in the country.

Bowlsby, by the way, is a 1974 graduate from Minnesota State Moorhead who has obviously done quite well for himself. Knowing the Fargo-Moorhead area, he said he was not surprised when Klieman bolted his alma mater for a rival school in the Missouri Valley Football Conference.

Also coming in Monday’s paper, with a trip to Texas not far away, my determination on NDSU’s player most likely to be a real cowboy.