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Posted on 11/15/2005 7:20:13 AM PST by aft_lizard
Bill Snyder, the man who turned Kansas State football from a national laughingstock into one of the nation's top programs, is expected to announce his retirement at this afternoon's press conference in Manhattan.
According to a Powercat Illustrated story on the website rivals.com, Snyder told his players the news around 9 p.m., which came as a "complete surprise to everyone in the room."
The 66-year-old Snyder is expected to step down following Saturday's season finale at KSU Stadium against the Missouri Tigers. It will mark the end of possibly the greatest turnaround in the history of college football.
Snyder, who has posted a 135-68-1 record in 17 seasons at K-State, took over a Wildcat program that suffered during the 1980s.
He was named the head coach at KSU following the end of the 1988 season where he was an assistant coach and the offensive coordinator for Hayden Fry at the University of Iowa.
When Snyder was named the head coach at K-State, the home attendance figures were abysmal and the play on the field wasn't much better. The Wildcats were in the throes of a 27-game winless streak and was considered one of, if not the worst college football program in the country.
Not many believed Snyder would or could turn around the K-State program that had posted an ugly 3-40-1 record from 1985 to the end of the '88 season. But K-State athletic director Steve Miller was so sure he had found the right man that he challenged anyone in the audience to come back a few years later and he would laugh in their face.
The K-State winless streak grew to 28 games before a last-second victory over North Texas State gave the Wildcats their only victory during the 1989 season. That 1-10 season wasn't an omen of things to come. It was an aberration.
The Wildcats improved to 4-7 in 1990 and then stunned the college football world with a 7-4 record in 1991. The Wildcats were not eligible to go to a bowl game that season because two of the victories were against non-Division I schools.
Kansas State fell back to a 5-6 record in 1992, but the breakthrough came during the 1993 season when the Wildcats finished the regular season 8-2-1 and placed third in the Big Eight Conference.
Then came a trip to the Copper Bowl in Tucson, Ariz., where the Wildcats destroyed Wyoming in front of thousands of joyful and long- suffering purple-clad fans.
The Wildcats weren't a one-year wonder under Snyder. Instead, they would shortly challenge the likes of Nebraska, Oklahoma and Colorado for supremacy in the Big Eight and later the Texas schools in the Big 12.
From 1993 to 2003, the Wildcats played in 11 consecutive bowl games and finished in the Top 10 rankings five times - in 1995 (7th), 1997 (8th), 1999 (6th), 2000 (9th) and 2002 (7th). They played in four New Year's Day bowl games - twice in the Cotton Bowl and twice in the Fiesta Bowl.
The Wildcats nearly played for the national championship 1998, winning their first 11 games of the season before a heartbreaking 36-33 double-overtime loss to Texas A&M in the Big 12 championship game in St. Louis. A victory would have set them up with Tennessee in the Fiesta Bowl for the national title. The Big 12 title game was nearly overshadowed by the news of three assistant coaches - Mike Stoops, Brent Venables and Mark Mangino - leaving the KSU program to join Bob Stoops, another former Snyder assistant coach, at Oklahoma.
The Wildcats won nine of more games in 10 of 11 years between 1993 and 2003, including 11 games in four consecutive seasons from 1997- 2000. One of the biggest victories in K-State history came in 2003 when the Wildcats crushed unbeaten and No. 1-ranked Oklahoma, 35-7, in the Big 12 title game in Kansas City.
But following the victory over Oklahoma, things haven't gone so well for Snyder and the K-State program. The Wildcats lost to Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl following a controversial decision by Snyder to play senior quarterback Ell Roberson, who had been involved in an off-the-field incident the night before the game.
The last two seasons haven't been kind to Snyder, either. The Wildcats were 4-7 last season - their first losing record since 1992 - and followed that up with a 4-6 record this season heading into Saturday's game with Missouri.
Venables, a former K-State player and assistant coach under Snyder and currently the defensive coordinator and assistant head coach for the Oklahoma Sooners, is being tabbed as one of the frontrunners for the K-State job.
11/15/2005; 02:31:11 AM
ping
Me too. Purple Power was second to me after Go Big Red.
With Snyder at the wheel the Sooners couls never afford to overlook the Wildcats. I wish him luck in the future.
Now, I hope they don't steal the OU DC.
I wouldnt be surprised if they do or if some of his other old assistants try to come back home.
wow....
KSU is going back to swirling the drain again....
I wonder if KSU is willing to invest in a quality replacement?
That program was beyond hopeless before he took it over. He did an outstanding job.
We will find that out.
They should. They could bring in Butch Davis (horrible NFL coach, but a great College coach) and he could bring them back somewhat.....
Incredible turnaround at K State. I had forgotten how bad they really were in the 1980s.
Hats off to Bill Snyder, can't say I know a lot about the man but it would seem he was someone who made a difference with the greatest game ever invented. I'll never forget that upset of OU in the last game of 2003 . . . did that kick up a hornets nest with BCS rating system.
That victory caused the entire system to change.
that doesn't happen very often.
Big time! I work with a number USC grads and we were drooling at the prospects of a LSU vs. USC BCS match up . . . hell, my top programmer couldn't even explain how a Univ. of Hawaii loss (was it to Boise State?) kept USC out of the Sugar Bowl. But that dog's been debated to death. Right now all roads point to a Texas/USC match up and the BCS programmers might get a reprieve.
Are you all stoked for your national TV matchup this Saturday?
Michigan week is like no other :)
as we speak, there are snow flurries outside my apartment here at KSU, and a long procession is headed to Aggieville...it's like a wake.
I hope the program doesn't return to the depths from which Snyder lifted them out of.
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