Bill Snyder by Bill Snyder

Author:Bill Snyder
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Triumph Books
Published: 2021-09-10T18:09:35+00:00

14. Continuing to Climb

“Coach Snyder leaves an incredible legacy of success in many parts of college football and the coaching fraternity. He developed a program that hadn’t had much success before he arrived into a program that year in and year out was as strong and respected as any out there. He sustained that over a long period of time. And he didn’t do it just once; he did it twice. He has a long track record of coaches working under him who went on to head coaching positions and had their own success. I’ll forever be grateful to Coach Snyder for the big opportunity he gave me as a young assistant to coach the secondary and then serve in a leadership position as a coordinator. Those seven years for me at Kansas State were as good as any that I’ve been a part of, and I learned a great deal about developing a program from being there.”

—Bob Stoops, former Oklahoma head coach

Our fans journeyed in great, great numbers, braved the snowfall and ice, and spent many hours slowly white-knuckling their way southbound along nearly impassable Interstate-35 between Kansas and Dallas-Fort Worth. Purple filled the downtown district, purple filled the frigid lawn during our pep rally at the Starplex Amphitheatre, and approximately 35,000 Kansas State fans filled Cotton Bowl Stadium to cheer on our players in a 35–21 win against No. 21 Tennessee in the 2001 Cotton Bowl. In the last four seasons, we had beaten No. 14 Syracuse of the Big East Conference in the Fiesta Bowl, we had beaten Washington of the Pac-12 Conference in the Holiday Bowl, and we defeated a very fine Southeastern Conference team in Tennessee, which was two years removed from a national championship.

Our mission was always to be the toughest team on the field. To prepare for the Dallas-Fort Worth weather forecast, we spent a majority of our bowl preparation practicing outdoors in Manhattan and we did not allow weather to alter our gameplan for the bowl game. A majority of our players ran into Cotton Bowl Stadium without long sleeves while Tennessee players wore sweatshirts under their jerseys and parkas on their sideline. We sent a message, and I believe maintained a psychological edge throughout the game. Our 507 yards of total offense was the most allowed by Tennessee all season, and our option-oriented 297 rushing yards came against the third-ranked rush defense in the country. In his final career game, Jonathan Beasley passed for 210 yards and two touchdowns and rushed for 98 yards and one score to earn Offensive MVP. Running back Josh Scobey set a school bowl record with 147 rushing yards and two touchdowns. Quincy Morgan had seven catches for 145 yards and two touchdowns in his final game. Our defense entered ranked sixth in the country and allowed Tennessee to complete just seven passes while forcing three interceptions in the game. Tennessee head coach Phil Fulmer commented on our players’ physical and tough-minded nature following the game

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.