Sean Snyder, who served as a special assistant to head football coach Lance Leipold, will no longer be on the Kansas coaching staff, a KU spokesperson confirmed Saturday.
Snyder, who is starting a personal coaching business, took on a wide-ranging role for the Jayhawks during his lone season on staff in 2023. What Leipold called his “first and foremost” responsibility was to assist Taiwo Onatolu’s special teams unit, but he contributed across diverse areas.
“It’s being able to get around to each (section of the staff) and just being able to share experiences and things that I’ve had in the past,” Snyder said on a November episode of Leipold’s “Hawk Talk” radio show, “and so I think there’s been some good things that have been able to help out the program.”
His hiring last March made waves because he is the son of Bill Snyder, the legendary Kansas State head coach, and once seemed poised to take over that role from his father.
Prior to joining KU, he had worked as a special teams coordinator at K-State and then at USC and Illinois. He earned national special teams coordinator of the year honors from FootballScoop in 2015 and from Phil Steele in 2017.
Describing Snyder’s impact on that November edition of “Hawk Talk,” Leipold referred to a conversation he had with general manager Rob Ianello about Snyder’s status as a consummate professional.
“The special teams area of course has been there,” Leipold added, “but there’s so many things that he’ll bring to my attention about certain things, whether it be the recruiting, whether it be in what we’re doing with our projects, but also just about his experiences in college football and things that can help us and give other perspective.”
He also said the following: “I’m going to say it to him now because I don’t know if I’ve said it to him yet: I hope we can keep him part of this staff for an awful long time.”
Instead, Snyder will move on. Beginning Thursday afternoon he was promoting his personal kicking business and a series of Kansas City-area clinics on social media.
Snyder is not the first loss for KU’s special teams staff; Zac Barton, another special teams analyst for KU last season, is now on staff at San Diego State.
The Kansas special teams unit showed some promise in 2023, particularly compared to its performance the previous season, but struggled down the stretch. Punter Damon Greaves averaged 39.0 yards per punt and primary kicker Seth Keller went 11-for-14 on field goals. Return man Trevor Wilson scored a special teams touchdown against UCF but struggled with fumbles.
Matt Tait/Journal-World photo
