Kansas State Football: Who will replace Bill Snyder if he retires after 2018?

Neal Brown – Troy Head Coach

Perhaps no program has put together more impressive non-conference victories in the past couple of seasons than Troy. In 2017, the program went into Death Valley and defeated the LSU Tigers on their way to an 11-2 record and a victory in the New Orleans Bowl.

This season, the Troy program is 7-2 including a victory on the road at Nebraska, a tough place to play (though lately that could be debatable). The head man of the Troy Trojans program is Neal Brown, and he could make sense for the Wildcats.

An offensive coordinator at Texas Tech and Kentucky prior, the Troy program has continued a strong line of success in the Sun Belt conference that was started under Larry Blakenship. He was a legend at Troy serving 23 years, taking the program all the way up from Division II to 1AA (FCS) to where they are now.

Brown, if he were to coach at Kansas State, would at a minimum have experience following a legend. The field at Veterans Memorial Stadium is named in his predecessors (Blankenship) honor.

Perhaps the two questions about Brown are recruiting and territory. Troy, for all their experience and the proximity to recruits in the Sun Belt area don’t do nearly as well as you’d expect recruiting.

Programs like Southern Miss, Louisiana-Monroe, Appalachian State and Tulane rank higher than the Troy class. Combined with questions about Brown’s knowledge or ability to recruit the Midwest (the majority of his career has been east of the Mississippi River) would be a question that would be played out.

Regardless, Brown certainly appears to be a quality coaching candidate.