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Texas Tech football: Red Raiders can virtually end the Snyder era this week

By Matthew Conner

LUBBOCK, TX - NOVEMBER 14: Head coach Bill Snyder of the Kansas State Wildcats and head coach Kliff Kingsbury of the Texas Tech Red Raiders before the game between the Texas Tech Red Raiders and the Kansas State Wildcats on November 14, 2015 at Jones AT&T Stadium in Lubbock, Texas. Texas Tech won the game 59-44. (Photo by John Weast/Getty Images)
LUBBOCK, TX - NOVEMBER 14: Head coach Bill Snyder of the Kansas State Wildcats and head coach Kliff Kingsbury of the Texas Tech Red Raiders before the game between the Texas Tech Red Raiders and the Kansas State Wildcats on November 14, 2015 at Jones AT&T Stadium in Lubbock, Texas. Texas Tech won the game 59-44. (Photo by John Weast/Getty Images) /
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The Texas Tech football team will have an opportunity to perhaps put the final nail in the coffin of one of the best runs in college football history if they can knock off Bill Snyder and Kansas State this week.

Ahead of this week’s showdown with the Red Raiders, almost no one in Manhattan, Kansas is talking about how the Wildcats and the Red Raiders match up or what will transpire on the field Saturday afternoon.  Instead, the entire Kansas State fan base (and much of the national media as well) is obsessing over the question about whether it is time to move on from Bill Snyder.

And should the Texas Tech football team come away with a win Saturday, the Red Raiders will perhaps be the team remembered for dealing the fatal blow to one of the most storied careers in college football history.

What Bill Snyder has done at Kansas State is the most improbable and remarkable coaching success story in the modern era of college athletics.  When the former Iowa defensive coordinator took over in 1989, Kansas State had an all-time record of 299–510 (.370) in 93 years.

The Wildcats had been to only one bowl game in their program history and had managed just four winning seasons in the previous 44 years.  And the Snyder era began with KSU in the midst of a 27-game winless streak.

But as we all know, fortunes in the Little Apple were about to change.  In Snyder’s third year (1991), he guided the team to a 7-4 record, their first winning season since 1970.  Two years lated, he bought home the school’s first-ever bowl win in the Copper Bowl.   That marked the beginning of a streak of 11-consecutive bowl appearances as the Wildcats became prominent on the national stage.

Snyder has won two Big 12 titles (2003 and 2012) and took his team to the Big 12 championship game in 1998, 1999 and 2000.  He’s compiled an overall record of 214–116–1 and is considered by many to be one of the greatest coaches in the history of the sport because he has built a national contender at a school that does not recruit blue-chip prospects and where his budget and resources are not even in the same ballpark as the premier programs.

But the storm clouds are building over the Snyder era like never before.  Controversy, and  mediocracy have led many to believe that it is time to move on from the Snyder era.

This year, the Wildcats are just 4-6 on the season and 2-5 in the Big 12 and if they do not win their final two games, they will have their worst season since 2004.  But the 79-year-old head coach has shown no desire to step away.  In fact, he signed a 5-year contract extension this past August.

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However, many believe that decision will soon be made for him.  The Kansas City Star is calling for Snyder to step down and a string of odd controversies including the withholding of bowl rings from players that have transferred and Snyder singling out one individual player after a loss to TCU lead many to believe that the writing is on the wall.

So as the Texas Tech football team heads to Manhattan, they have an opportunity to play spoiler to one of the greatest stories in college football history.  Similar to the role the OU Sooners played in the 1999 season finale in Lubbock when Spike Dykes coached his final game, Tech will be the villain this week in what appears like it could be Snyder’s swan song inside the stadium that bears his name.

But if there is any lingering doubt about whether the Bill Snyder era has run its course, Texas Tech could finally put the issue to bed by beating the Wildcats in Manhattan for the first time since 2008.  In a way, the Red Raiders would be doing a favor to the KSU faithful by helping bring more clarity about what direction the program should head. And after three years of back-and-forth debate on the Kliff Kingsbury issue, Tech fans know all-too-well how tiring and debilitating a prolonged period of uncertainty can be.

Last week, K-State had to score in the final minutes to knock off lowly in-state rival Kansas which just fired its head coach a week ago.   Had Snyder lost to the team that has become the modern day equivalent of what his program was in 1989, there is no doubt that his run in Manhattan would have ended after this year.

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And while that still looks to be the way this situation will eventually play out, the Texas Tech football team can put the final nail in the coffin of one of the greatest coaching careers in sports history.  What’s more, if they don’t, that nail may be going into the coffin of their own head coach.

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