Big 12: Bill Snyder speaks
When Bill Snyder arrived at Kansas State in 1989, the program was as bad as any football program ever has been. It’s worth repeating. It’s always worth repeating.
The Wildcats had 47 scholarship players, in the days when the limit was 95. Three wins total in the previous four seasons. K-State regents were discussing de-emphasizing football to a lower classification. Or dropping it all together, “which was so detrimental to the university,” Snyder said.
Some of those same feelings arose a week ago, when it appeared the Big 12 would break up, leaving Kansas State without a decent option for a conference home.
I chatted with Snyder on Saturday night. He’s an old favorite of mine. I think he’s the greatest coach in the history of college football, and I haven’t been afraid to say so. Snyder has appreciated it and always has been willing to talk with me about the state of college football.
We talked about a lot of things, and I ended up writing a column about his desire to retain divisions and the Big 12 championship game. You can read it at: http://newsok.com/kansas-states-bill-snyder-prefers-five-team-divisions-big-12-title-game/article/3469989?custom_click=lead_story_title
But Snyder had a lot of other interesting things to say, and I thought I would share them with you.
“I’m pleased with the outcome consider what the options would have been,” Snyder said of the soon-to-be 10-team Big 12. “I hate to lose Nebraska. I hate to lose Colorado. By the same token, being able to retain the 10 schools was a very positive thing.
“I’m proud of our conference leadership. It was a difficult time. They took a lot of beatings, but in the end, they made a lot of things happen.”
The situation was dire at K-State, which could have been headed to the Mountain West Conference unless it was drafted into some other league with Kansas. The Mountain West is a fine, competitive league, but its television revenues are nowhere near what the Big 12 earns. Budgets would have been slashed at K-State.
Snyder said the 2010 Big 12 crisis was a similar feeling to the despondent feeling around Manhattan in 1989, that it “had the potential to have the same impact on people who don’t get noticed. Administrators throughout the university structure. Staff members. Faculty. Students, coaches, all their staffs. A lot of people would have been impacted.
“To me, there wasn’t enough understanding of that. We fail to make people’s lives as important.
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