Kansas State Football: What’s next for K-State after Bill Snyder retirement?
By John McCarty

Legendary Kansas State football head coach Bill Snyder has chosen to retire from his role as the head coach of the program. Where does K-State go from here?
November 24, 1988.
That is the date the Kansas State Wildcats football program hired Iowa offensive coordinator Bill Snyder. After being introduced on November 30th, 1988, the Wildcat football program would go on to compile over 215 victories under the leadership and tutelage of the legendary coach.
That would take place over two stints, compiling two conference championships, four division championships, and nine bowl game victories. In 2015, Bill Snyder was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.
Along the way, Bill Snyder has helped several other coaches get their career going. Bob Stoops was on the original staff at Kansas State before taking the defensive coordinator job at Florida and eventually the head job at Oklahoma.
Mark Mangino, Dana Dimel, Jim Leavitt, and Bret Bielma, would all land head coaching jobs after working with Bill Snyder. All have found varying levels of success as head coaches. Former defensive assistant Brent Venables along with Leavitt are two of the top paid assistants in college football. (Both names have come up as candidates to replace Snyder in Manhattan.)
However, the program has been trending in the wrong direction in recent years, highlighted by the struggles of the 2018 season that saw the Wildcats sputter to a 5-7 record. The cherry on top of the rotten season was a stunning collapse on the road against Iowa State in the season finale. The Cyclones scored 21 points in the last ten minutes to overcome a 17 point and win the game.
The writing of a possible change had been on the walls for weeks. Pieces have been written in numerous places, including here. For weeks, the writing was on the wall that change was coming.
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If there was a fault with Bill Snyder’s program, highlighted more in his second run, was his inability to recruit the level of talent needed to sustain the run of success similar to what had been accomplished during his first run. Junior college talent, which had always been a garden of talent was now being raided by bigger, more aggressive programs.
Smaller schools were now not as small and able to recruit talent to stay in the home state. A lack of talent along with depth issues combined to rear the ugly head that was 2018 season.
Now the question and attention turns toward who will pick up the whistle and replace the legendary coach on the sidelines. The focus for a replacement should turn toward three primary names: North Texas head coach Seth Litrell, Clemson defensive coordinator Brent Venables and Oregon defensive coordinator Jim Leavitt.
Brent Venables played linebacker and began his coaching career at Kansas State. Leavitt was a coach in Manhattan until 1995 before taking the head coaching position at South Florida. Litrell played football at Oklahoma and has coached at numerous spots before turning around North Texas’ program.
There is obviously more to come on the potential replacements for Kansas State football, but for the time being, let’s remember and cherish a man who took over a football program that had not won a single game in over TWO SEASONS and did wonders for it.
Snyder led the Wildcats to 11 straight bowl games and 19 total. Snyder is the only coach in Kansas State history to coach a winning bowl game and has nine of them. Snyder is also the only coach to record nine wins or more in a season. He will be missed on the sidelines.