Wednesday, 04 December 2024

Bill Snyder

Contest: The US Athletic Hall of Fame - Coaches 2024
Embed from Getty Images
Sport(s): Football
Statistics: 2 Big 12 Championships (2003 & 2012)
1 Walter Camp Coach of the Year Award (1998)
1 AP Coach of the Year Award (1998)
1 Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Awards (1998 & 2012)
3 Big Eight Coach of the Year Awards (1990, 1991 & 1993)
4 Big 12 Coach of the Year Awards (1998, 2002, 2011 & 2012)
215-117-1 NCAA Record
9-10 Bowl Record
Member of the College Football Hall of Fame
Member of the Kansas State Hall of Fame
Bill Snyder was Hayden Fry's assistant at North Texas State and followed him to Iowa, working as his offensive coordinator from 1979 to 1988. Snyder elected to sign on with Kansas State as their head coach, a position that he became synonymous with.

Before Snyder, the Wildcats might have been one of the worst Division I teams in college football. They had an all-time winning percentage of .370 and only appeared in one bowl game, a loss in the 1982 Independence Bowl. Snyder immediately had the logo redesigned, as a metaphoric rebirth of the team, and in four years, Kansas State won their first bowl, the 1993 Copper Bowl.

Snyder brought Kansas State to a bowl annually from 1995 to 2003, winning six of them and finishing in the top ten at the end of season polls six times, with all of those years being 11-win seasons. Snyder retired after the 2005 season, but he returned in 2009 and ushered in another eight-bowl streak 2010-17 before retiring for good in 2018.

Snyder left college football with 215 wins, a phenomenal number considering the state of the Wildcats program when he first signed on.

We are proud to nominate Bill Snyder for the United States Athletic Hall of Fame.

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