The newest member of the Kansas football coaching staff, former K-State player and coach Sean Snyder, comes to Lawrence with a sterling reputation for his work on special teams.
Both as a player and a coach — at multiple schools — Snyder’s experience in the so-called third phase of the game was a big part of the reason KU coach Lance Leipold brought him to Lawrence.
But Leipold might never have made the hire if not for the positive input of the men on his staff who already had a role in handling KU’s special teams.
Defensive ends coach Taiwo Onatolu is the Jayhawks’ special teams coordinator and will remain in that role. Special teams analysts Aaron Miller and Zac Barton also have played an important part in putting together KU’s philosophy and scheme in that area.
The message Leipold got from all three of them when he approached them about bringing Snyder on board was simple: “Why wouldn’t we,” Leipold recalled hearing.
When discussing the hire after last Saturday’s spring scrimmage, Leipold praised all three men for their “controlled egos,” saying that they understood that bringing Snyder on staff was “for the betterment of the program.”
“That really says a lot about them,” Leipold said.
Snyder’s track record says all that needs to be mentioned about him.
Officially hired last Friday as a special assistant to the head coach, Snyder will have a role with the Jayhawks that stretches beyond special teams.
Leipold on Saturday outlined the various ways in which Snyder could help the program, with recruiting, facilities upgrades, operations and even input on defense all being on the list. With Snyder spending last season coaching special teams at Illinois, Leipold even noted that the Jayhawks play Illinois in each of the next two seasons.
“I just think it was too good of an opportunity not to explore this and a chance for us, as a program, to get better,” KU’s third-year head coach said Saturday. “Way too many positives not to explore this.”
Coincidently, that’s how Snyder felt, as well.
Kansas football General Manager Rob Ianello and football administrator Collin Sexton, who played for Snyder at Kansas State, were both instrumental in bringing Snyder to Lawrence.
Their urging inspired Leipold to look into it — a little last year and more seriously in the past month — and after a few conversations it quickly became clear that KU and Snyder were a good match.
“My short visits turned to long visits with coach Leipold,” Snyder said last Saturday. “I like a lot of the things he talks about.”
Included among them were loyalty, commitment and integrity, with people and in life.
“Those things are important,” Snyder said.
Snyder also liked what he saw from observing a couple of spring practices. He noted that the athletes and coaches were engaged and operated at a good pace and said that he was impressed with how the coaches ran practice.
“I was dead set on I’m going to work for good people,” Snyder said. “I want to be in a place where everybody’s marching in the same path, in the same direction. That’s how it worked for us back when dad (Bill Snyder) and I were back at K-State. I’ve tried to get into positions where I am working with good people.”
Since leaving Kansas State following the 2019 season, after more than two decades working for his father, Snyder has coached two seasons at USC and last season at Illinois.
He said Saturday that he received positive feedback about his next move from nearly every specialist who ever played for him and he had responded to more than 130 text messages by the time he went to his second KU practice on Saturday morning.
As for the reaction, positive and negative, from passionate fans at both schools, Snyder joked, “I can tell you, I haven’t looked at social media. I just kind of leave that stuff alone.”
He does not know what the future holds, but he seems awfully pleased with the present. So, too, does his father.
“He and I talked about it and he wants to see me coaching, doing what I do, and he’s really happy,” Snyder said of the legendary former Kansas State head coach. “He’s looking forward to whatever comes out of it. It’s been really good. He’s been very, very supportive of everything I’ve done from USC to Illinois to here to whatever the next move becomes. The hope is if (I) stay here, great, and if it’s somewhere else, it’s somewhere else.”
Matt Tait/Journal-World photo
