Bill Snyder has retired after a Hall of Fame career as the head coach at Kansas State.
After 27 seasons and 215 wins, Bill Snyder has retired.
The legendary Kansas State coach is already in the College Football Hall of Fame and spent the last several years coaching at a stadium named in his honor. After the Wildcats went 5-7 and missed a bowl game this year, it was time for Snyder, 79, to call it a career.
This season was as trying one for Snyder and Kansas State as they had a losing record for the first time under Snyder’s watch since 2005 when Snyder retired for the first time after a 5-6 season.
Snyder returned to the sidelines in 2009 to once again save the program. The program regressed after Snyder’s first retirement when his former assistant, Ron Prince, took over as head coach.
Just as Snyder resurrected the program in the Little Apple when he was first hired, Snyder built the program back up into a winner who consistently overachieved.
13 times Kansas State ended the season ranked in the AP Top 25, including six top-10 finishes. The peak of the Snyder watch at Kansas State took place from 1993-2003 when the Wildcats won at least nine games in 10 of the 11 years. He won two Big 12 championships, four Big 12 North divisions and was a seven-time coach of the year spanning the Big 8 and Big 12.
Snyder had a career record of 215–117–1. He was 9-10 in bowls. Snyder was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2015.
With Snyder’s retirement being expected, the replacement will be a huge hire for the program to make sure they don’t regress in his absence. They will need to make sure they build on Snyder’s success and coaches like former Snyder assistant Jim Leavitt could make a ton of sense to be the next Kansas State head coach.
Former Oklahoma team captain and North Texas head coach Seth Littrell could also be a candidate to watch for this opening.
The Manhattan Mercury was the first to report the news of Snyder’s retirement.