I hope Bill Snyder has success coaching football again at Kansas State University. But he and the university are taking a big risk. Snyder is putting his legacy and the fans’ good will on the line in coming back to coach. And K-State is betting that the 69-year-old will be able to turn the football program around once more. Snyder’s final two seasons as head coach weren’t successful. Will he do better now?
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15 Comments
Good question. But after Tim Fizgerald managed to hockey in our nest with the Patterson thing, Coach may well be our best hope. But 5 years for $9 million, that’s a little much. Three years, maybe, to prepare a successor.
I think it’s sad.
I think it’s sad the K-State people got so arrogant about the first Snyder regime. He started scheduling teams like the Little Sisters of the Poor and the Illinois School for the Blind and got the Wildcat Nation eager for blood.
Snyder did a remarkable job and won some big games but never won THE Big Game.
No one in Mildcat Nation seems to remember Snyder’s last two years of coaching. Can he put in enough 20-hour days to transform three years of Ron Prince’s recruits into a winner? Maybe. But who got ‘em in Manhattan in the first place? And what’s gonna happen with all those kids who bought into Ron Prince who’ll be faced with Bill Snyder for spring practice?
Snyder is no Joe Paterno. The next two years are nothing but auditions for assistant coaches who might work their way into Snyder’s next successor.
It’s too late for Snyder to find some bull of a lineman on an 8-Man team in Hog Bluff, Kansas and will make it to the NFL.
It’s too late to go down into the lower-level players and find the kid who makes Bronko Nagurski look like Pee Wee Herman.
Snyder is gonna collect the five or six million dollars or die tryin’.
And that’s kinda sad.
MH:
The 2003 Big XII Championship game was what, chopped liver?
Not Coach’s fault Roberson and a bunch of players got stupid with a chick they shoulda known better about at the Fiesta Bowl.
And HOW many conference championship games has K-who played in???
Can MO really scramble things by beating whoever it is from the South?
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bth
Posted November 24, 2008 at 2:18 pm | Permalink
Can MO really scramble things by beating whoever it is from the South?
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Uhhh . . . no, ’cause it ain’t going to happen. Then again, whodathunk OU would kick TT’s a&& so bad.
Maybe OSU can beat OU? That would put TT in the Big 12 game.
bth
Posted November 24, 2008 at 4:40 pm | Permalink
Maybe OSU can beat OU? That would put TT in the Big 12 game
no it would put UT in the Big 12 Title game, weird i know, but the tiebreaker is BCS standings and its unlikely TTU would jump Texas, PLAYOFF NEEDED!!!
I think you are wrong killer. In the event of a TWO way tie it is head-to-head. That would be TT.
And HOW many conference championship games has K-who played in???
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Remind me again which BCS bowl game KSU won. My memory fails me.
Ron Price’s team was on the mend. Snyder can build off of it.
“I think it’s sad.
“I think it’s sad the K-State people got so arrogant about the first Snyder regime. He started scheduling teams like the Little Sisters of the Poor and the Illinois School for the Blind and got the Wildcat Nation eager for blood.”
Oh bullsh*t. That has become the popular myth in sports journalist land. Yes, K-State scheduled weak teams, the very sort of weak teams that they lost to under Parrish and most of his predecessors. And the fact is, Bill Snyder built a winning program and continued it through the birth of the Big 12. And not everyone played in the non-conference season was a cupcake, ask Pete Carroll.
“Snyder did a remarkable job and won some big games but never won THE Big Game.”
Bullsh*t again. KSU 35 OU 7 It may have happened once, but it did happen.
“No one in Mildcat Nation seems to remember Snyder’s last two years of coaching. Can he put in enough 20-hour days to transform three years of Ron Prince’s recruits into a winner? Maybe. But who got ‘em in Manhattan in the first place? And what’s gonna happen with all those kids who bought into Ron Prince who’ll be faced with Bill Snyder for spring practice?”
In point of fact, I think K-State screwed up firing Prince, at least as early as they did. The current K-State fan base has largely morphed into creatures I do not recognize. Some nitwit said that K-State “set a record for futility” in the first half of the OU game. It wasn’t even in the top 20 of futile first halves against Oklahoma. I think a Big 12 job for Prince was probably too soon, but it would not surprise me to see this guy work himself up the ranks and become a successful coach. Be that as it may, most K-State fans I have spoken to are very aware of Snyder’s last two seasons, but they also remember the first Ron Prince season when they went to a bowl, and fair or not figure that was a holdover from Snyder.
“Snyder is no Joe Paterno.”
Entirely premature to say. Will he duplicate his earlier successes? Probably not. The rise of the south in the Big 12 was predicted when the conference was still formed. Still, I have learned not to bet against the man.
“The next two years are nothing but auditions for assistant coaches who might work their way into Snyder’s next successor.”
That’s probably half right. I have little doubt Snyder is out to do exactly what he said, stabilize the program. However, I suspect he still has fire in the belly. Like one Joe Paterno.
My suspicion is that Tim Fitzgerald did screw up big time (but not as badly as the individual who leaked the information). I suspect that Patterson WAS interested in the job. But, you don’t announce something like that when the coach in question is in the midst of a season where he is trying to get his team into a longshot BCS berth.
And I’m a person who wants K-State to lose every game, and cheers when it happens. Except I want Oklahoma and Nebraska and especially Texas to lose more.
Newt:
1997 Fiesta Bowl.
Micheal Bishop completely outplayed Donovan McNabb in that game. At one point, Jerry Jones had offered draft picks to New England to get him, and they refused.
Maybe the Choking Chefs ought to look north (three consecutive Grey Cups) and find their answer.
Both K-State and KU have always struggled with the reality that there aren’t enough top quality football players in Kansas to go around. Snyder, in his heyday, was very good at developing talent.
What I miss from the late 90’s teams, leading up through the 2003 Big 12 championship (was Monkeyhawk living in Canada back then?), is the tough defense. Example: we’re playing USC in Manhattan in 2002. They’re ranked in the top ten if memory serves, it’s a packed house, and the Trojans run their first play from scrimmage. They go with a run up the middle, but the play gets broken up in the backfield, practically before the quaterback makes the handoff. Terry Pierce busts the mother and sets the tone. You could put together a long list of very disruptive defensive players who spent a lot of time tackling people before they went anywhere. Just ask a handful of KU quarterbacks who never made it past the first quarter.
K-State is not as far down as they were when Snyder took over the other time, but the southern teams are powerful and he won’t get near them for a while. The north is not that strong. Snyder is two years away from being competitive in that division.
The goal might be to win the north in four years. By then, it would be wise to have named a successor, have the guy already in the program and ready to take over. That should have been done the other time. Recruiting may have been hindered by players worrying that Snyder would retire midway through their careers.
This is not an ideal situation, but when are coaching change situations ever ideal? I’m confident that Snyder will do his best to get the program moving again, all the while looking to the future.