Klett follows his collegiate football future to South Dakota

Ben Klett wanted to play football badly enough for head coach Bob Nielson that he decided to go the extra mile.

A couple of hundred of them, actually.

Klett is set to sign with the University of South Dakota on national letter of intent signing day Wednesday morning, less than two months after the Lake Zurich senior verbally committed to Western Illinois University.

Klett was recruited by WIU assistant coach Ted Schlafke, who along with several other coaches left shortly afterward to follow Nielson to South Dakota. Nielson, who guided Western Illinois the last three years, was introduced as South Dakota's new head coach on Dec. 15.

Schlafke had even made home visits to Klett, who made an official visit to Western Illinois in early December.

"I really liked him and connected with him," Klett said. "Then when I went on a visit to Western, I met with Nielson and really liked him as a coach."

Despite their move to South Dakota, Schlafke and Nielson remained interested in Klett, who withdrew his verbal to Western and committed to South Dakota a couple of weeks ago, after an official visit.

USD is located in Vermillion, which is in the southeastern part of the state, just south of Sioux Falls. The city lies atop a bluff near the Missouri River.

"It's pretty much just a small college town," Klett said. "There's a really lot of open land, and then once you get into the town, it's really pretty and a lot of nice buildings that they have."

While Western Illinois' campus in Macomb is about four hours away, Vermillion is twice that. Klett wasn't deterred by the distance, however.

"I'm all right with it," he said.

Klett is also OK with where Nielson and his staff choose to play him on the football field for the Coyotes. A three-year varsity starter, the 6-foot-1, 210-pound Klett played both running back and linebacker for the Bears. He said he was recruited as an "athlete."

"As long as I'm playing, I'm perfectly fine with either (position)," Klett said.

Nielson led Minnesota Duluth to the NCAA Division II national championship in 2008 and 2010. Schlafke, who was UMD's starting quarterback on the 2008 team, will be Nielson's passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach at South Dakota.

After Nielson left for South Dakota, Klett called it a "crazy couple of weeks." He had narrowed his choices to Western Illinois and Northern Illinois, which wanted to offer him only preferred walk-on status.

After Klett helped Lake Zurich advance to the Class 7A state championship game in 2013, he says Michigan State and other Big Ten schools were recruiting him. The interest waned, however. Bowling Green and Illinois were showing interest in him before his senior year, which ended with the Bears missing the state playoffs.

Klett capped his high school career - which included 2,261 rushing yards and 42 touchdowns - by earning Daily Herald all-area and all-North Suburban Conference honors.

In the end, as far as the recruiting process, it all worked out.

"Extremely happy," Klett said.

Undoubtedly, Nielson is too.