The Legend Retires

By Big12-Fans Writer Mike Archiopoli

The man who engineered the greatest building project in college football history is retiring. On Saturday, Bill Snyder, the man who took Kansas State from oblivion to the elite of college football will hang up the headset and coach his last game at home against Missouri. Consider this my ode to one of the greatest coaches in the history of college football.

Snyder’s accomplishments at Kansas State are near epic. He came to Kansas State in 1989 from the University of Iowa. At this point the Wildcats had lost 27 consecutive games and were dubbed by Sports Illustrated as the “worst program in America”. Snyder quickly changed all of that. In ’89 they broke the losing streak, but still limped to a 1-10 record, with their only win coming on a last second TD pass against North Texas. They proceeded to go 5-6 in 1990, 7-4 in 1991 (no bowl game), and back to 5-6 in 1992. Then the bowls came. In 1993, Snyder led them to a 9-2-1 record and a Copper Bowl berth, their first bowl game since 1982 (which not so coincidentally is the only bowl game in Kansas State history from a non-Snyder team). The Copper Bowl was the first in a series of 11 consecutive bowl games that included two Fiesta Bowls. The streak ended in 2004 when the Wildcats fell to a 4-7 record.

In all, Bill Snyder led Kansas State to 135 wins in his 17 years as head coach. Nobody in the history of K-State football is even close to that win total. The Wildcats won 11 games 6 times in the Snyder era, an amazing accomplishment for a team that had only one 10 win season prior to his arrival. In 1998, Kansas State was the number one team in the nation and only a second half collapse away, in the Big XII championship against Texas A&M, from playing a less than impressive Tennessee team for the national title. In 2003, Snyder led the Wildcats to their first conference championship since 1934. Snyder is a 3-time national coach of the year (1991, 1994, and 1998) and has led Kansas State to the conference championship game on three occasions (1998, 2000, and 2003).

In the past two years the K-State program has seen signs of slippage. In 2004, they missed their first bowl game since 1992 and last Saturday they clinched their second consecutive losing season. Many attributed this string of losing to a massive loss in assistant coaching talent. Snyder, who grew up under the tutelage of legendary coach Hayden Fry at Iowa, has overseen the development of several fine college head coaches. Bob Stoops (Oklahoma), Mike Stoops (Arizona), Jim Leavitt (South Florida), Phil Bennett (SMU), Brett Bielema (2006 Wisconsin), and Mark Mangino (Kansas), are just a few of the coaches who cut their teeth at Kansas State under Snyder. Others attributed the slip to a loss in talent. But regardless of the reasoning no K-State fan was ready to doubt that Snyder could bring them back.

So you may ask what is next for the Kansas State program. The answer is unclear, but the rumor mill is swirling. The current hot item is that former KSU player/assistant Brent Venables will leave his post as defensive coordinator at Oklahoma and return to the program he left in 1998. Venables may be the right man for the job; he was there at the very beginning of the building project as a linebacker at KSU from 1991-92. This may be a perfect fit for both parties. Kansas State is obviously in need of some direction, considering they lost the only successful coach they have ever had. Thus, who better than a former player and coach from the Snyder era to come back and take over as head coach. Venables has been around Manhattan; he knows the program and will take pride in keeping the tradition that he was part of establishing. At only 34 years old, he would likely be just the type of injection of youth that the program needs. In addition, unless Bob Stoops plans on leaving for the NFL, Venables will never get a shot at Oklahoma. I’m sure that the rumors will continue to swirl and maybe Venables won’t come back to take over, but the new head coach should be someone who knows the program. Kansas State should not run too far away from the tradition that Bill Snyder established.

Legendary Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer once said “Bill Snyder isn’t the coach of the year, and isn’t the coach of the decade. He’s the coach of the century”. You can’t even call what Snyder did a rebuilding, it was a building. Snyder put Kansas State on the map; he is and always will be the face of Kansas State football. He changed the program from a national laughingstock to a feared contender. But he did more than just change a program, he changed a university. Snyder brought a sense of pride and identity to a university that needed it, even enrollment rates have increased in his time on campus. All of Kansas State, the Big XII, and the college football community should recognize and appreciate what Bill Snyder accomplished.

As a Kansas State graduate and fan, I can never express my gratitude to Bill Snyder to the level he deserves. I’m fairly confident in speaking for the Powercat nation when I say that I will miss Bill Snyder and that he was truly amazing coach and person. He is a one of a kind coach who can never really be replaced. I wish Snyder all of the best and I can only hope that the Wildcats can send him out on a winning note Saturday. He is an eventual Hall of Famer and will always be remembered as the engineer of the greatest turnaround in college football and perhaps in all of sports. Snyder deserves every bit of praise that will be sent his way over the next several days.

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