Let's be honest. Much of this falls on the shoulders of Bill Snyder.

[~WabashRoll~]

Nobody can or ever will deny the miraculous work the man did.  He resurrected our football program in every sense of the world.  He restored pride to our University.  In fact, he kept our school from being ousted from the Big 8 in the late 80's when we were being pressured by many to drop football and join the MoValley.  He's a hall of famer in every sense.  He never would have allowed the University to be humiliated like it was yesterday.

In the end, yes, he lost touch with recruiting.  The fact that we didn't capitalize on our successes in the late 90's and did anything measurable with our facilities while similar schools like V-Tech were building palaces and keeping pace in their conferences really came back to bite us.  The coaching staff became a revolving door and we couldn't keep the key pieces in place for more than a couple years at a time.  We lacked continuity.  We lacked the talent to compete following the Big XII Title.  The records in 04 and 05 were all evidence of all this. 

Forget all of that above, though.  For a man that was absolutely meticulous and calculated in every detail, it's absolutely inexplicable that he would not have prepared an orchestrated plan to pass the program to a hand picked successor when he decided to walk away from the game suddenly.  This was HIS program, hell his athletic department in every sense of the word.  He had every power and every right to do so.

But, to simply make a surprise announcement before the final game in 05' with absolutely nothing in place, and then to stand on the sidelines and leave the legacy of EVERYTHING he built for K-State football in the hands of an unqualified incompetent like Tim Weiser to conduct the hire, it undoubtedly was the biggest mistake in his career and we are experiencing the reprocussions today. 

It's sad, because it didn't have to be this way.

[KSU54]

So it falls of Bills shoulders that RP came in the first day and put (PR) style over substance? It's Bills fault that PR is such an ass in his managment style that he ran off half of his own staff after the first year? Give me a break!!!! Yes at the end it had slipped for Bill, but even with that being said there was always effort and a plan that kept us in all games. RP doesn't have a clue about fundamentals or leadership. TW do your job the ship it taking on water.... I am not in favor of OJT.

[Pete]

Nobody can or ever will deny the miraculous work the man did.  He resurrected our football program in every sense of the world.  He restored pride to our University.  In fact, he kept our school from being ousted from the Big 8 in the late 80's when we were being pressured by many to drop football and join the MoValley.  He's a hall of famer in every sense.  He never would have allowed the University to be humiliated like it was yesterday.

In the end, yes, he lost touch with recruiting.  The fact that we didn't capitalize on our successes in the late 90's and did anything measurable with our facilities while similar schools like V-Tech were building palaces and keeping pace in their conferences really came back to bite us.  The coaching staff became a revolving door and we couldn't keep the key pieces in place for more than a couple years at a time.  We lacked continuity.  We lacked the talent to compete following the Big XII Title.  The records in 04 and 05 were all evidence of all this. 

Forget all of that above, though.  For a man that was absolutely meticulous and calculated in every detail, it's absolutely inexplicable that he would not have prepared an orchestrated plan to pass the program to a hand picked successor when he decided to walk away from the game suddenly.  This was HIS program, hell his athletic department in every sense of the word.  He had every power and every right to do so.

But, to simply make a surprise announcement before the final game in 05' with absolutely nothing in place, and then to stand on the sidelines and leave the legacy of EVERYTHING he built for K-State football in the hands of an unqualified incompetent like Tim Weiser to conduct the hire, it undoubtedly was the biggest mistake in his career and we are experiencing the reprocussions today. 

It's sad, because it didn't have to be this way.

I agree completely about his failures in recruiting.

However, you have to be fracking kidding me about the sucessor stuff....Snyder worked his ass off to try and get several different guys, who all turned us down.  The Vaniers even coughed up the cash for better AC salaries in an effort to get it solidified.

Ron came in and conned Weiser into buying a used car.  Can't fault Snyder for Weiser being a fool.

[JR Ewing]

Snyder leaving the cupboard less than full is one thing, but it's not so bare that Nubb scores 70+.  The lack of effort falls on Prince and he even said as much during his post-game comments.

[~WabashRoll~]

KSU54 -  Did you read the post?

This has nothing to do with Ron Prince being underqualified and sucking as a coach.  That's becoming pretty crystal clear.

This is about, why did Snyder, a man who managed and controlled every single aspect of Kansas State football for over 15 years, make a surprise retirement accouncement, then pass the buck of responsibility to an incompetent athletic director Tim Weiser and an unqualified school president to decide the fate of HIS legacy and all that he built for Kansas State football.

Had Bill Snyder planned his exit strategy, picked his successor and put the pieces in place as Barry Alvarez did at Wisconsin, we would not be being having this discussion right now.

[Pete]

Ummmm.  Did you read the post?

This has nothing to do with Ron Prince being underqualified and sucking as a coach.  That's becoming pretty crystal clear.

This is about, why did Snyder, a man who managed and controlled every single aspect of Kansas State football for over 15 years, make a surprise retirement accouncement, then pass the buck of responsibility to an incompetent athletic director Tim Weiser and an unqualified school president to decide the fate of HIS legacy and all that he built for Kansas State football.

Had Bill Snyder hand picked his successor, as Barry Alvarez did at Wisconsin, we would not be being having this discussion right now.

He picked several, and they all said no.

[scoopeloo]

 a different coach might have pulled off one more win the last 2 seasons..  so what.  the biggest point is Snyder's staff didn't recruit worth a crap after stoops, venables, and mangino took off and left ksu.  Snyder did not replace these guys with comparable talent and the boat has been slowly sinking every year since.  the decline has been taking place since 1998.  no one apparently noticed that behind the scenes for several years the recruiting was gone.  we lost the KC recruits to Mizzouri.  we lost the OU recruits to OU.  we lost TExas recruits to OSU.  we need to find the right coaches in a hurry.  this recruiting season is crucial in identifying if this staff is capable.  now...go help them by going to the games.

[~WabashRoll~]

Ummmm.  Did you read the post?

This has nothing to do with Ron Prince being underqualified and sucking as a coach.  That's becoming pretty crystal clear.

This is about, why did Snyder, a man who managed and controlled every single aspect of Kansas State football for over 15 years, make a surprise retirement accouncement, then pass the buck of responsibility to an incompetent athletic director Tim Weiser and an unqualified school president to decide the fate of HIS legacy and all that he built for Kansas State football.

Had Bill Snyder hand picked his successor, as Barry Alvarez did at Wisconsin, we would not be being having this discussion right now.

He picked several, and they all said no.

Outside of Leavitt, who else?

You have to admit, the messy exit was pretty un-Snyderlike.

[Pete]

Ummmm.  Did you read the post?

This has nothing to do with Ron Prince being underqualified and sucking as a coach.  That's becoming pretty crystal clear.

This is about, why did Snyder, a man who managed and controlled every single aspect of Kansas State football for over 15 years, make a surprise retirement accouncement, then pass the buck of responsibility to an incompetent athletic director Tim Weiser and an unqualified school president to decide the fate of HIS legacy and all that he built for Kansas State football.

Had Bill Snyder hand picked his successor, as Barry Alvarez did at Wisconsin, we would not be being having this discussion right now.

He picked several, and they all said no.

Outside of Leavitt, who else?

You have to admit, the messy exit was pretty un-Snyderlike.

I will admit that it was a cluster...in the end....but it didn't start that way.

It was suppose to be Venables as the AC, who would eventually take over as HC.  Vaniers donated the cash to make it happen.  However, BV got greedy and wanted the HC job immediately (rumor).  Weiser cooled on BV, as have other ADs, because BV had some depression issues and tried to off himself (rumor).

Bill turned his sights to Leavitt, and basically begged him to come.  Leavitt said no.  I think Bill probably approved of Gary Patterson, but again, Patterson said no before he was even asked (but after he got his raise).

Weiser decided to take matters into his own hands, and was swept off his feet when he talked to Ron....'cause that's what Ron does well, talk.  Weiser made the classic mistake of confusing knowledge with intelligence.  Ron talks well, and talks a great game.  However, Ron's combination of hubris, inexperience, and insufficient intellectual horse-power have combined with disastrous results.

I honestly believe that KSU football is dead.  All joking aside, I believe that KSU will be the worst team in the North over the next 5 years.

[Houstoncat93]

It doesn't really matter if its Snyder's fault or not.  The question we should all be asking is; "Has Ron Prince improved the program in the last 2 years?"  Based on what I've seen the answer is no.  The most optimistic evaluation I can give at this point is that the program is stagnant.  Prince will learn from his mistakes and the program will start to move up the college football ranks.  The most realistic evaluation is the Prince is not ready to be an executive.  He doesn't know how to hire or recruit and is best suited to be in a PR role.  He is more concerned about "the KSU brand" and "bold and daring" than he is the basic fundamentals of winning football and leading a successful organization. 

[rjd27]

If Prince can't fix what is broken, he becomes the buffer between Snyder and the next coach, who hopefully reinforces that it is, in fact, possible to win at K-State.
Who is going to want to replace JoPa at Penn State or Bowden at Florida State whenever those two retire? Even if they have replacements hand-picked, there's still no guarantee.
Schools that have or had legends directing the program usually need a buffer coach. Prince may end up being just that.
R.J.

[snyderfanatic]

Interesting, all the bad stuff is because of Coach Snyder. Does he credit for the wins against Texas as well?

[cireksu]

special teams and Josh Freeman won the texas games.

[Legore]

Patterson never said no Leavitt was the guy Snyder wanted from the start and when he said no Weiser and Wefaled moved to Prince.   Patterson might have had interest or might have just wanted the raise from tcu but he contacted KSU about the job and they showed no interest.  At that point they were focused on Leavitt and shortly after that Patterson renewed his contract with tcu.  I think ADTW wanted his own guy from the start but felt like Snyder had earned the right to chose his guy.   When he said no he went straight for Prince and Wefald loved it because he is big into minority hiring.  When he announced Prince his speech sounded like an NAACP rally.

I never liked the hire from the start and said so and of course got ripped.  Prince still has a chance to get it done but I think he's going to have to change his approach to certain things.  He's got some good qualities but he's also kind of out there with some of his ideas and methods.  I also think he made some pretty big mistakes when he put together his first staff and he's made some big mistakes in scheduling.   I still think he has some staff issues and the problem is having a bad staff will kill but so well making constant changes.  That is why it was important to put together a good staff from the start and he failed to do that and perhaps doomed himself from the start.

In all honestly I like Prince better now then when we hired him.  He's a talented coach if he wasn't so damn hard headed he might have a chance.  Pinkel was stubborn and hard headed when he got to Missouri but he's managed to change and is becoming a heck of a coach.  

[cireksu]

Recruiting well will fix a lot of problems.

Every big 12 North/overall champion has a great running game, I would like us to find a great running game but we don't have the oline to do that, but recruiting well can fix that.


I'll give the 3-4 a chance but no defense will work with the lack of talent/depth that we have.


Our special teams play has been pretty awfull specifically the kick coverage/return game.

Clearly the biggest issues are on the oline and dline.  I don't know that the linebackers are that good but they are at a disadvantage because of the dlineplay and they are trying to do too much and not able to focus on doing their job.  Football is the ultimate team game, you have to trust that the other guys will do their job.  Right now, and since OSU our defense is in shambles because we cannot win the battle up front.

[sonofdaxjones]

Things that hurt or are hurting the KSU football program:

1.   Snyder's control freak, hyper-conservative, can't be bothered with change ways.

2.   An ineffective athletic director and a sucker for a school president.

3.   A current head coach with too big an ego, who likely won't figure out that he needs to check  his pseudo-intellectual ego at the door and bring in a coaching staff with a clue if they'll even come.

Until further notice . . . KSU football is on life support.

[cireksu]

we are suffering from 4 years of poor recruiting.

That's pretty much the only thing.

[Houstoncat93]

we are suffering from 4 years of poor recruiting.

That's pretty much the only thing.

I think you are talking about a symptom and not a cause.  Ask yourself why have we had poor recruiting?

[cireksu]

well our last staff sucked hard at it,  and the current staff had to put together 2 classes in 14 months.