K-State football coach Bill Snyder focused on TCU, not retirement

A trying football season hasn’t changed the way Bill Snyder evaluates his coaching future at Kansas State.

“I don’t think about those things until the season is concluded,” Snyder said Monday during his time on the Big 12 football coaches’ teleconference. “I have answered that question a thousand times the same way.”

Snyder signed a five-year contract in August that will pay him $3.2 million this season and contains a $3 million buyout, but his future has been a hot topic among K-State fans. With the Wildcats (3-5, 1-4 Big 12) off to their worst start since 2015 and fresh off a 51-14 loss to Oklahoma in which the Sooners amassed 702 yards, some have wondered if Snyder might opt for retirement rather than another rebuild at the age of 79.

Tim Fitzgerald, in a column for Gopowercat.com posted Sunday, went so far as to call for Snyder to retire.

But Snyder appears focused on K-State’s next opponent, TCU.

“We have looked at what we think the issues are,” Snyder said, “we have looked at what has created those and what we might do to solve the problems where they exist. That’s what we’re in the process of doing right now.”

The Wildcats will hit the road on Saturday to take on the Horned Frogs. TCU is favored by 8, but it seems like a much friendlier matchup for K-State than what it encountered against Oklahoma.

The Horned Frogs have lost five of their last six games, including a 27-26 defeat Saturday at Kansas. Still, the Wildcats will need to improve to win.

Snyder was caught off guard by the way K-State played against Oklahoma, saying players failed to give 100 percent effort. He thought they were capable of much more.

“I can’t tell you that I anticipated that we would play as we did on Saturday,” Snyder said. “I thought that we had a better approach going into the ballgame than it actually turned out to be.”

This isn’t new territory for K-State. The team started 3-6 in 2015 and still rallied to make a bowl. For now, all Snyder can do is push for a similar result.

“Just because we have come out of it before doesn’t mean that it will happen automatically,” Snyder said. “It starts with me to begin with making sure that I have a good understanding of everything and have an answer for the issues that we have.”

This story was originally published October 29, 2018 at 12:20 PM.