MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The difference between Blake Seiler's old boss at Kansas State and his new boss at West Virginia is a mere 40 years.
 
But according to Seiler, those two bosses - the recently retired Bill Snyder and 39-year-old Neal Brown – have more in common than one might expect.
 
"I've been very impressed with coach Brown," Seiler said recently. "There are a lot of similarities between how he runs his program and how coach Snyder ran his program – organization, accountability, teaching the guys the fundamentals of toughness, hard work, discipline, doing things the right way and being respectful."
 
Prior to January, when he accepted Vic Koenning's offer to join West Virginia's defensive staff to coach the inside linebackers, Seiler's coaching career was spent entirely at Kansas State.
 
With the exception of 2003, when he was as a member of the Oklahoma State's national championship wrestling program, Manhattan, Kansas, has been Seiler's place of residence for most of his adult life. 
 
Koenning was the guy responsible for getting Seiler into the coaching profession in 2009. At the time, Blake was putting his Kansas State mechanical engineering degree to good use at Cessna Aircraft when Koenning called and offered him a graduate assistant position on his defensive staff.
 
Koenning departed K-State after just one year, but Seiler stayed and a few years later that turned into an on-field coaching position with the defensive ends in 2013, and eventually, he became the Wildcats' defensive coordinator in 2018.
 
Last year, Seiler switched back to defensive ends before making the biggest move of his career by coming to Morgantown, West Virginia, soon after the calendar flipped to 2019.
 
"Coming here when I was at Kansas State, the fan base is outstanding," Seiler recalled. "Driving up here in the bus and seeing the tailgating going on reminded me a lot of Manhattan. That's how (K-State fans) are, just a little bit bigger here.
 
"If you give them something to cheer about, this is a tough place to play," he continued. "I like the mentality here. It's a blue collar, hard-working, dedicated fan base."
 
In many ways, Manhattan, Kansas, and Morgantown, West Virginia, are a lot alike with just a few exceptions.
 
"I'm more used to the flat land, and there are more people here. The traffic can climb up on you," Seiler laughed.
 
True, but the college-town atmosphere is what he enjoys most about what he does. "That's the best part of college football to me; that's why I do this," he said.
 
Seiler admitted the last couple of seasons having to constantly deal with questions about Bill Snyder's age oftentimes made their jobs more difficult.
 
The biggest impact, of course, came in the cutthroat business of recruiting where he frequently had to answer questions about Snyder's impending retirement, which finally came at the conclusion of the 2018 season.
 
Actually, Seiler fought that in recruiting from the outset.
 
"Even when coach Snyder came back in '09, I think everybody thought it would be two or three years, get it right and then go back into retirement," he said. "Well, 10 years later he was still going. It got tough at the end just because of the questions, and it probably impacted recruiting.
 
"It was tough to get those two or three guys that are difference makers in your program," Seiler admitted. "I think we all thought on the staff that it would never happen. The joke for us was coach Snyder just wasn't human, but it finally happened."
 
For many years during Snyder's two different tenures at Kansas State, the Wildcats took advantage of the access they had to some of the best junior college football players in the country playing in Kansas.
 
It was a formula Dana Holgorsen once tried to copy at West Virginia.
 
"The Jayhawk Conference in Kansas does have a lot of talent," Seiler said. "It's great junior college football and a lot of people don't know the rules there have changed.
 
"They used to only (admit) 11 out-of-staters and now it's unlimited, so they can bring in as many guys from wherever – the Southeast, California … you name it," he said. "And then the Arizona junior colleges just closed so that's even more talent that needs a home. Where are they going to go? The Mississippi (junior colleges) only take six or eight out-of-staters so those guys are all going to gravitate toward the Jayhawk Conference."
 
Guess where Seiler is going to spend a lot of his time when he's not in the office or out on the field? That's right, recruiting those same Kansas junior colleges he once did when he was at K-State.
 
"I never had to do them all, but I know all of those guys just from recruiting players over the years," Seiler said.
 
He will spot-recruit Louisiana as he once did at Kansas State, and he will also have Northeastern Ohio as his primary recruiting territory.
 
"I'm very impressed with the talent there and from talking to the coaches in that area, they've been great," Seiler said of getting into Cleveland and Akron for the first time. "They're really excited about WVU in the future here."
 
Louisiana is not a common state for West Virginia, but the Mountaineers have had some good players from there in the past. Wide receiver Darius Reynaud and offensive tackle Selvish Capers are two Louisiana products who thrived at WVU and spent some time in the NFL.
 
There are also two are on this year's roster, slot receiver Tevin Bush and defensive end Quondarious Qualls.
 
"It's not like we were taking six to eight kids a year out of there, but the two or three kids we got were four-year starters and outstanding players for us," Seiler noted. "LSU can't sign them all.
 
"The next tier of talent there has high upside," Seiler explained. "New Orleans has a ton of talent … Baton Rouge, you can spend a lot of time there, and those kids are not afraid to travel."
 
Beginning Tuesday, all of Seiler's time is going to be spent working with West Virginia's inside linebackers and defensive ends, now called Bandit linebackers.
 
According to Seiler, the Bandit is a hybrid defensive end/linebacker specific to the 4-2-5 scheme Koenning utilizes. Sometimes that guy will line up next to the tackle with his hand on the ground and other times he will be off the ball next to the linebackers.
 
"Coach Vic has evolved a little bit so that's why I'm coaching the Bandit because he's also going to walk off the ball and play linebacker, which in this league is good – that's what you need," Seiler said.
 
Ideally, Seiler said he would like his Bandits to be about 6-3, 230, but good football players come in all shapes and sizes.
 
He's seen that first hand from his years at Kansas State.
 
"Measurables are a good starting point, but we had a guy by the name of Darren Sproles at K-State, and he wouldn't pass any measurable test but he's still playing (in the NFL)," Seiler said.
 
"All good coaches understand it's not what we want to do but what they can do. That's where you've got to start, and that's what we've got to figure out right now," he concluded.
 
Spring practice begins Tuesday afternoon and concludes with the Gold-Blue Game on Saturday, April 13 at Milan Puskar Stadium.