Pussy's, team cancers, etc.
In all seriousness, I contribute the 04-05 meltdown to a combination of these things:
1. Horrible defensive coaching. Obviously BB was the guy getting it done. We didn't do a good job of replacing him. Looking back our defense was horid during those two years.
2. Instability at QB. None of those guys were Roberson/Dunn level talent, but it was like the Dunn/Roberson year stretched out into two years.
3. Youth. A lot of raw talented underclassmen...very few seasoned upperclass vets. It seemed, though I haven't really checked, that Snyder went after youth more than JUCOs for a couple of seasons as well. At least that's how the resulting team appeared.
4. Complacency/attrition in the staff. The good assistants kept leaving and slowly but surely the replacements weren't as good. You have to wonder why some of the guys that were around forever, we're around forever. Snyder should have cleaned house at some point, but I think he felt like he'd rather just retired than rebuild the staff.
I'm not a star counter, but Rivals considered the classes that made up those teams the best KSU classes ever. More telling to me, is that how many guys on those teams are in the NFL, or will be eventually.