I’ve been following the football rivalry between Kansas and Kansas State for as long as I’ve been alive.
Even before I moved to Lawrence, when I was a young kid living in Colorado in the 1980s, I remember flipping the television on one Saturday morning — this was back when not every game was televised somewhere — and seeing the Jayhawks and Wildcats playing in a mostly empty stadium in a game the announcers kept calling the toilet bowl.
From pillow fights and avert-your-eyes matchups, to battles between ranked teams and lopsided beatdowns both ways, I thought this rivalry had seen it all.
Boy, was I wrong.
If you think the KU-K-State battles were fun before, you might want to brace yourselves for what we’re about to see in the very near future.
The younger Snyder will be spared the awkwardness of coaching against his dad, who retired for good following the 2018 season. But I can’t imagine it’ll exactly be easy for him to wear the colors of his former rival while coaching against the school for which he played and gave his blood, sweat and tears to for more than two decades.
Then again, the way things ended for the Snyder family at Kansas State, maybe it will be.
Heck, I wouldn’t even call you crazy if you told me that the scenario exists in which Bill will be rooting for the Jayhawks when these two Sunflower State rivals meet up on Nov. 18 at David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium. Quietly, of course.
Insert cliché here. And I’ll let you have your pick:
• Buckle up.
• Get your popcorn ready.
• Let the games begin.
One could argue that Sean Snyder’s latest professional move could put him at risk of getting locked out of the family home. But I’d bet a lot of money that son is stronger than school here, and, regardless of where he’s coaching or who he’s working for, the old man would side with his son one billion times in a row on this deal.
That’s especially true after K-State seemingly went against Bill Snyder’s wishes and hired someone other than Sean to replace him.
At the risk of overhyping what’s happened here, it’s worth noting that this is unprecedented stuff.
It’s not that the Snyder family hated Kansas, more that they spent so many of their waking hours devoted to the goal of making sure that they were always anywhere from 1 to 10 steps ahead of KU for more than 20 years.
In the offseason. During game week. On game day. At halftime. You name it. Year after year after year, no matter how much better the Wildcats appeared to be than their in-state rivals on paper, the Snyders spent an unimaginable number of hours each year making sure it stayed that way.
And now, just like that, the younger Snyder is trading in his purple for crimson and blue.
Current Kansas State defensive line coach Buddy Wyatt and former KU strength coach Chris Dawson did the opposite in the past, moving from KU to K-State. And there have been others, as well.
But those moves don’t even come close to being on the same level as this one.
And it’s not just the fact that Sean Snyder’s switching sides here that’s the biggest news. That will steal the headlines and get people — yours truly included — worked into a frenzy for a while. My jaw dropped when I saw the news release announcing the move.
But Sean Snyder is a damn good football coach, and he’ll help Kansas tremendously. If he weren’t, this move — no matter how eye-popping it is — would not have been made.
His expertise in the area of special teams should help KU immediately in some way. And his years of experience, football IQ and general wisdom seems to line up perfectly with the rest of the staff and the things that Leipold values the most.
This was not some wild move to make a splash. This was about Leipold making Kansas better, which has been his singular goal since he took over the program back in 2021.
While the rest of us will go wild over Sean Snyder flipping schools and working for what once was the enemy, don’t expect him to go all Eric Musselman when these two meet up in November.
I’m sure he’ll experience some interesting emotions and feelings that day and in the week leading up to it, but like he did for 20+ years under his father, Sean will have a job to do that day, and his focus will be on doing that to the best of his ability, no matter who is on the other sideline or what color they’re wearing.
I don’t know him, but I know enough about him to know that he won’t want to make this about him versus K-State.
But the rest of you — on both sides — can have at it.
This rivalry just got a whole lot more interesting.
Nick Krug
