Wyoming defensive coordinator Scott Hazelton is currently in the Vanier Family Football Complex, and is expected to be officially named defensive coordinator at Kansas State on Tuesday, GoPowercat.com has learned. If hired, Hazelton would give Coach Chris Klieman the engineer of a defense that has ranked in the Top 30 in the Football Bowl Subdivision in scoring defense and total defense each of the past two seasons.

Hazelton completed his second season as defensive coordinator and linebackers coach at Wyoming in 2018 after serving as assistant linebackers coach with the Jacksonville Jaguars for three seasons.

The 45-year-old Hazelton replaces Ted Monachino, who is believed to be heading to the Chicago Bears after new K-State head coach Chris Klieman hired him as defensive coordinator on Dec. 28.

Klieman is certainly familiar with Hazelton. Hazelton spent three years as defensive line coach and two years as defensive coordinator and linebackers coach at North Dakota State under Craig Bohl between 2007 and 2011. Klieman joined Bohl’s staff at North Dakota State as an assistant coach in 2011 before serving as its defensive coordinator for the next two seasons.

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Bohl left to become Wyoming head coach in 2014 and Klieman succeeded him as North Dakota State head coach.

“Scottie and I have a long history together,” Bohl said in a statement when Hazelton joined him at Wyoming. “Scottie brings a great body of experience, having coached in the NFL, in the PAC-12 and the Mountain West. Most importantly, he was an architect of the start of our great defenses that we had at North Dakota State.”

Under Hazelton, the Cowboys ranked 28th in the FBS in scoring defense (22.0 points) and 19th in total defense (326.2 yards) in 2018 after finishing ninth in scoring defense (17.5 points) and 23rd in total defense (335.2 yards) in 2017.

Prior to his stint with the Jaguars, Hazelton spent 2013 as defensive coordinator at Nevada and spent 2012 as linebackers coach at Southern California.

Hazelton joins defensive ends coach Blake Seiler, cornerbacks coach Van Malone and safeties coach Joe Klanderman. Mike Tuiasosopo was hired on Monday to coach defensive tackles.

Malone spent this past season as defensive quality control coach at Mississippi State after serving three seasons as defensive coordinator at SMU. Klanderman has served on Klieman’s coaching staff at North Dakota State for five seasons. His defensive backs have ranked in the top five interceptions four times and he has coached three All-Americans.

Seiler returns to coach defensive end after serving as defensive ends coach between 2013 and 2016. Seiler served as defensive coordinator and coached linebackers in 2018 following the retirement of Tom Hayes after the 2017 season.

Tuiasosopo served as defensive tackles coach at Texas El-Paso in 2018 after spending a majority of his coaching career on the west coast with his most recent stops at Southern California and UCLA.

The K-State defense finished the 2018 regular season ranked third in the Big 12 Conference in scoring defense (25.4) and fourth in total defense (403.4). The Wildcats are in decent shape defensively with 11 players returning that started in at least half of the games during the 2018 season.

A total of 16 defensive players bring back a combined 173 career starts for K-State, which returns seven of its top nine tacklers. Linebacker Da’Quan Patton finished his junior season with a team-high 70 tackles and fellow linebacker Justin Hughes finished his junior campaign with 56 despite starting in only half of the games.