Bill Snyder retires, again...probably for good this time.

[CookieG]

A few might still not know the story of the turnaround he performed at Kansas State.  It bears repeating.

 

When he took the job in 1989,  SI published an article referring to it as "Futility U".  It was branded the worst DI football program in college history. 

 

https://www.si.com/vault/1989/09/04/120464/futility-u-kansas-state-winless-since-1986-has-one-claim-to-fame-it-is-americas-most-hapless-team

 

When he took over, they had lost 27 straight games.

They had a whopping 4 winning seasons in over 40 years.

He was their 4th coach in 5 years.

And the 27 game win streak was worse than it sounds. They'd lose regularly by 50 to Oklahoma and Nebraska, and even then, those teams would put their underclassmen in by the 3rd Q. 

 

He had a good tenure as an OC at Iowa and to this day, taking the Kansas State job looks foolish.

 

His slogan for the turnaround was a pretty unimaginative "Why not Us?"

 

Recruiting in Kansas or anywhere else was pretty impossible. As Barry Switzer once said, "My job's easy, I recruit for Oklahoma. We won a national championship. He has to recruit for Kansas State. How do you get kids to want to play there?".

 

Since getting kids out of high school was nearly impossible, he pioneered scouring JUCO rosters.

 

Within 3 years, they not only started winning games, but had their 1st winning record in ...forever.

 

Within another 2 years, he began a streak of 11 straight bowl games.

 

-His coaching tree has produced several who went on to win the Frank Broyles Assistant Coach of the Year and a few National Coach of the year awards.

-Though the read option is often credited to Urban Meyer, he actually learned it from Snyder at a coaching clinic in the 1990s.

-His job at Kansas State is generally regarded as the greatest turnaround in CFB history.

-He might be the only person who has both a stadium and highway named after him while still alive.