Rubley article from The Athletic, you're welcome
The genesis of the most important recruitment of Kansas State coach Chris Klieman’s career occurred in 1987.
At the time, Klieman was a defensive back at Northern Iowa and was asked to entertain a high school prospect in town for an official visit. Klieman hosted a hot-shot quarterback out of Davenport, Iowa, named T.J. Rubley. They did what all college kids do. They went to bars and restaurants and to a football team party to offer a glimpse of what the nightlife in Cedar Falls was all about.
“When they put Coach Klieman with me on our recruiting trip, they felt he was the best player on campus at the time, and Kurt Warner was on that team,” Rubley recalled. “So that’ll give you an idea of what they felt about him.”
But Klieman, as it turns out, was a better football player than a recruiter at the time. Rubley wound up picking Tulsa, where he enjoyed a productive college career before playing five years in the NFL.
Take this as an important lesson about how profoundly small this world can be. A recruiting weekend that occurred almost 35 years ago cracked the door open just enough for Klieman to land one of the most influential commitments in Kansas State football history, rivaling the signing of Josh Freeman in 2006.
As it played out, Klieman landed a commitment from the right Rubley.
T.J.’s son is four-star prospect Jake Rubley of Littleton (Colo.) Valley, the No. 195 overall player and the No. 14 pro-style quarterback in the 2021 recruiting class in the 247Sports Composite. When Rubley makes it official Wednesday, he’ll be the Wildcats’ highest-rated signee since 2007 and the program’s second-highest-rated quarterback of the modern recruiting era, behind only Freeman.
“It all worked out for my dad, and it’s going to work out for me, too,” Rubley said. “It was definitely a funny coincidence. I like Coach Klieman because he is a winner and I know he’s going to be at K-State for a long time. Nobody has ever said a bad word about him, and even dating back all of those years, my dad had a good experience with him. That’s not the reason I’m going to K-State, but it’s kind of funny how things work out sometimes.”
Rubley speaks like a quarterback who is going to change things. Yes, every prospect who commits to a program believes he will win a conference championship, but Rubley is different. He speaks with conviction — “We’re going to keep beating Oklahoma,” for example — and truly believes he and the program are destined for greatness.
Middle-tier programs sign quality prospects all the time, but landing the right quarterback with the right mentality? That’s a catalyst for real growth.
Everything Rubley does, intentional or not, carries weight. Even when he announced his commitment on New Year’s Day — the day after Kansas State lost 20-17 to Navy in the 2019 Liberty Bowl — it served as a message to the fan base: “Don’t worry Wildcat Nation, we got this.” He was sitting at a New Year’s party with his family and made his decision three hours after the Liberty Bowl, a time during which other recruits might have had questions.
“Coach Klieman called and told me it made the loss feel much better,” Rubley said.
Of course, it did. The hope of the future is always what makes difficult times more tolerable. And Rubley offers that hope.
Rubley could have signed with LSU, the program that helped Joe Burrow blossom into a Heisman Trophy winner, a national champion and ultimately the first pick in the 2020 NFL Draft. Some may view Rubley’s decision to go to Kansas State as the quicker path to the field, but in other ways, it’s the more difficult path.
Why not LSU?
Why not jump on offers from Michigan? Penn State? Texas A&M?
“I get that question all the time, about LSU,” Rubley said, “When I took a visit — LSU is one of the most beautiful campuses and that game atmosphere was unbelievable. Just watching Joe Burrow go on to break every record ever and win a Heisman Trophy and national championship, it’s like a dream every quarterback dreams of. It was very tempting. It was definitely something I was considering. The amount of athletes they have there and their offense, it was all there.
“But in my family, we never really have wanted to do that, so I guess we’re underdogs in that way. I could have gone to Valor Christian — a good high school program here that’s less than a mile from my high school where all the McCaffreys went — but I wanted to beat them. I want to be the underdog and fight uphill and build something. That’s no different in college.”
Rubley comes from a family of quarterbacks. His father played in the NFL, and he has two uncles who played at Iowa State and another who went to Auburn. His older brother, Ryan, played at Tulsa. He has a younger brother, Luke, who will probably turn out to be a recruitable quarterback, too.
Rubley played for his father at Littleton (Colo.) Highlands Ranch before attempting to transfer to a school in Iowa for his senior season as a result of COVID-19 putting a stop to football in Colorado. He was eventually ruled ineligible in Iowa and returned home.
T.J. played quarterback at the highest level, and outside of coaching his son, he also served as a consultant in the movie “The Replacements,” coaching Keanu Reeves to look like a football player as he played the role of Shane Falco.
Mastering the craft to actually be good at the game — not just to look good on a movie screen — is obviously the goal here. Rubley was attracted to Klieman because of his track record in developing stud quarterbacks at North Dakota State. Names such as Carson Wentz, Easton Stick and even Trey Lance, a projected first-round pick in the upcoming draft, all played a factor. Rubley is well aware of what Klieman and his coaching tree have done at the position.
“There aren’t as many guys who have developed my game as much as my dad did,” Rubley said, “but I know Kansas State is the right fit from every aspect.”
Rubley will soon be the face of the Kansas State program. He could have been one of many four-star prospects in a loaded class at an established power but instead picked a program he could put on his back. There’s a great responsibility that comes with that.
“Day 1, we are going to be winning,” Rubley said. “I expect the world from us.”