yeah at this point i don't understand how KU kids could talk bad about RP.
it's pretty funny to hear KU kids say "well the hawks may be bad, but K-State will be really bad when OBz retires because hey just look at what Ron Prince did!" Well Ron won more games in a single year than KU won during the 2010, 2011, and 2012 seasons combined. Even during Prince's worst season, he still won 5 games.
Also, it's important to remember that Prince was, by all accounts, completely incompetent, but yet, he still bumbled his way into 5 wins at K-State.
If anything, the Prince era should give confidence to K-Staters nervous about the Post Snyder days. We can look East with relief and know that, even with Ron Prince, it will never be as bad as any one of the past 3 seasons the Jayhawks have suffered through.
There is such a thing as context. Ron Prince had the luxury of playing in the Big 12 North and matching up against Baylor and Iowa State when they were absolute garbage. The Big 12 is better from top to bottom now. If your point is that the Ron Prince hire was better than the Turner Gill hire, I'd agree, but let's face it, both pretty much sucked. Prince was a combined 0-9 against KU, MU, and NU. That being said, Prince is still probably the 2nd-best coach in K-State football history, which is hilarious in and of itself.
You want the context? Ok.
So contextually, if we're ignoring the inherent advantages K-State's program has, Prince's job was harder than Gill's and Weis's. The conference is worse now. K-State's schedule was tougher back then.
Prince played tougher teams, with a team he assembled, and won more games.
So the point remains, even if this year and talent is 2004/2005, K-State could hire someone as inept as Prince, and the bottom is still higher than KU's best season since 2009, and even then, there would be k-state students (ahem) that would email the president of the university begging for that coach to be fired.
Let's take a look back at the Prince era, shall we?
2006: wins against Eastern Illinois, Florida Atlantic, Marshall, Oklahoma State (7-6 {3-5}), Iowa State (4-8 {1-7}), Colorado (2-10 {2-6}), Texas (10-3 {6-2})
2007: wins against San Jose St., Missouri St., Texas (10-3 {5-3}) , Colorado (6-7 {4-4}) , Baylor (3-9 {0-8})
2008: wins against North Texas, Montana St., La Lafayette, Texas A&M (4-8 {2-6}) , Iowa State (2-10 {0-8})
So, looking back, Prince had four quality wins in his three years at K-State (Texas x2, Oklahoma State, Colorado). By comparison, Gill had two quality wins in two years at KU (Georgia Tech and Northern Illinois). Also, as you can see, there were multiple bad teams in the Big 12 during the Prince years (Iowa State, Colorado, Baylor, Texas A&M, Nebraska, K-State, etc.). Right now, there's one bad team (KU). The difference is night and day, my friend.