David Beaty looks for magic while Bill Snyder tries to recapture some

It’s still uncomfortable and dangerous to put anything past Bill Snyder, even at 76.

So while it’s true that Kansas State hasn’t been achieving in football of late the way the Wildcats did when Snyder was 60, it’s also not smart to say Snyder has lost his magic. Who’s to say there’s not another rabbit or two in Snyder’s hat?

Meanwhile, at Kansas, David Beaty is yet to master even a simple card trick. We don’t know whether Beaty can potentially pull the Jayhawks out of a ditch created by two of the worst coaching hires in college football history, or whether the young and still-inexperienced Beaty is destined to join predecessors Turner Gill and Charlie Weis as another short-sighted hire.

K-State, coming off a 6-7 season, is not thought to be a Big 12 challenger in 2016. The media covering the Big 12, in fact, has picked the Wildcats eighth. But how many times has Snyder turned the table on expectations? I can give you some numbers that indicate Snyder isn’t the coach he used to be, but there’s this funny feeling I get every year at this time that he’s about to do something nobody saw coming.

Kansas is just trying to win a Big 12 game. Make that a game of any kind. The Jayhawks were 0-fer in 2016, which is why the opener against Rhode Island on Sept. 3 at Memorial Stadium holds more intrigue than it should.

Let’s go back to Oct. 17, 2009 — a chilly night in Boulder, Colo. The Jayhawks were off to a 5-0 start, ranked No. 17, and 25-6 in their previous 31 games, which included a 12-1 season and Orange Bowl victory over Virginia Tech to ring in 2008.

With a chance to steal a win against the Buffs, Todd Reesing’s pass into the end zone on the game’s final play was knocked down by 5-foot-7 Colorado defensive back Cha’pelle Brown to preserve a 34-30 win for a Buffs team that had been 1-4.

That loss started one of the most precipitous falls from grace you can imagine. Mark Mangino’s mostly-successful reign as KU’s coach screeched to a halt with a forced resignation attached to allegations of player mistreatment, as Gill and Weis were brought in to rescue the program, only to feed it to sharks.

Things aren’t pretty in Lawrence, even though Beaty — bless his heart — says all the right things. His heart is in the right place and under different circumstances, Beaty would probably do well. These circumstances, though, are almost evil, the worst you can imagine.

Starting with the loss to Colorado almost seven years ago, the Jayhawks are 12-67, 3-57 in Big 12 games.

The record on the field, though, doesn’t nearly capture all of the horror.

KU fired Gill after the 2011 season while still on the hook for three more years of his $2.1 million contract. And when the Jayhawks let Weis go after 2014, they owed him $5.6 million. Kansas will finally get out from under that contract in December.

That’s $11.6 million paid to coaches for not being there. Kansas football might be in its worst place in history, which is saying something.

Kansas State used to share the outhouse with the Jayhawks. That was before Snyder arrived. From 1993 through 2003, the Wildcats were 110-29-1, 63-21-1 in conference games and regarded as one of the nation’s best programs and stories. Fathers kept their kids up past bedtime to tell them what Snyder was up to.

But where is K-State now? Is there cause for concern? Has Snyder become a mere coaching mortal?

There are indicators that he has.

In his past nine seasons — including the two before his temporary retirement after the 2005 season and seven since his return in 2009 — Snyder is 66-46, 41-36 in the Big 12. The Wildcats were an impressive 27-9 in the Big 12 from 2011-14, though, before falling to 3-6 last season.

Snyder’s body of work suggest 2015 was nothing more than a glitch. Still, there is some tension associated with K-State football.

Snyder Family Stadium has undergone a series of upgrades. Man, that place is nice. But is the team the Wildcats put on the field guaranteed to keep fans packed into the stands?

The three seasons without Snyder — and with Ron Prince from 2006-08 — were not good. When Snyder decided to come out of retirement in 2009, it was all K-Staters could do to keep from kissing his feet.

There is no football at success at K-State without Snyder. He has guided the Wildcats to 16 of their 18 winning seasons since 1955 and to all but one of their 19 bowl appearances in history.

K-Staters would rather give up the Vista Drive-In than go through another Snyder retirement. They have learned to expect the unexpected from their venerable coach. If there are signs of deterioration, it’s easier to ignore them — like mold in the basement — than to contemplate a remedy. And to trust things will get better.

This story was originally published August 22, 2016 at 5:23 PM with the headline "David Beaty looks for magic while Bill Snyder tries to recapture some."