To understand why David Beaty (or any other coach that KU hires) cannot use the Bill Snyder method to rise from the depths of the Big XII (and the nation) to a consistently ranked squad, we first have to understand what college football was like from 1989 (the year Snyder took over) to 1993 (when KSU made its first bowl game) and now.
In 1989, the Big XII did not exist. The Big 10 actually had 10 teams. The SEC only had 10 teams. There was a thing called the Big 8 and another thing called the Southwest Conference. College football teams only played 11 games in the regular season. There were 25 D1 independents!
Simply put, the financial structure of the game was completely different. Conference alignment was different. There were only 18 bowl games.
In order to be eligible for a bowl game, you had to win 6 games. The schedule for a Big 8 team consisted of 7 conference games, plus four non-conference games. Winning six games wasn't a guarantee that you would be invited to a bowl, however, because there were so few bowls.
In those days, the Big 8 was not a tough conference top to bottom. In fact, the bottom of the conference was embarassingly weak. Iowa St., Missouri and Kansas were all sub .500 outfits. Oklahoma State was fairly average and Oklahoma was declining after a strong run in the 1980s. There were two powerhouses (Nebraska and Colorado) but not much else.
Bill Snyder was brilliant in his understanding of this structure. Snyder immediately did two very important things. First, he made sure he never played more than one non-conference road game. Second, he made sure that he never scheduled games in Manhattan against teams that would beat him badly.
In 1989, KSU played Arizona St (#25), Northern Iowa, Northern Illinois and North Texas State. ASU blew them out 31-0, but in those days, that game was not televised, so most KSU fans didn't see their team get shellacked. They may have heard it, but they didn't see their team get overwhelmed. They lost by 2 at home to Northern Iowa, by 17 at home to Northern Illinois and won their only game of the season by edging North Texas. They were then held winless in conference play.
1989 was the last time KSU lost a home non-conference game prior to the inauguration of the Big 12. In 1990, KSU went 5-6. They were 2-5 in the Big 8, but 3-1 in non-con. Their only home loss was a blowout at the hands of Nebraska. Now, think about that from the perspective of the fan - Yeah, your team went just 5-6, but if you had KSU season tickets, you saw them go 5-1. Maybe you made the trip to Lawrence and saw them lose to KU. Maybe you went to Mizzou and saw them lose there. But for a lot of the fanbase, KSU had a pretty darn good season in 1990 because they didn't see them losing (and especially not losing badly) in person or on TV, other than the OU game on the road (a 34-7 loss). Yeah, Colorado beat KSU by 60 to end the season, but you maybe heard that on the radio or read about it in the paper. You didn't see your team just getting manhandled.
In 1991, KSU went 7-4 (no bowl). Again, they were 5-1 at home (losing only by 10 to Colorado). If you're a KSU fan, you have now seen back to back 5-1 records at home. You even got to see your squad hammer three teams, a FCS Idaho St, a Northern Illinois squad that went 2-9 and a Missouri team that stumbled to a 3 win season. Nevermind that in 3 seasons now, KSU has only beaten one team that finished with a winning record (1991 KU finished 6-5). All you see is that you're 10-2 at home in the last two years. Who cares who you beat.
Bill Snyder understood that if he could make KSU competent (i.e., don't turn the ball over, control the clock, don't give up big plays) he could beat bad teams and compete with average ones. If you don't play any good non-con teams at home, and you play in the early 1990's Big 12, you are facing one good team at your place every year (either CU or NU).
In 1992, KSU lost all five of their road games by a combined score of 156-58. However, they again went 5-1 at home (noticing a theme) by winning all three non-con games, plus knocking off Iowa State and Oklahoma State. They were on TV three times (a blowout loss to Colorado, and a two score loss to Utah State, plus a home win against Iowa State), but if you're a fan, you had five happy rides home after games in Manhattan.
In the last 3 years, if you are a KSU fan that only attends games in Manhattan or watches on TV, you have seen your team win 15 games and lose only 5. That's pretty darn good. Yeah, you've heard about and read about road losses, but you haven't had to sit through many miserable losses. That builds support.
In 1993, Snyder started winning road games, and the rest is history. KSU went 2-2 on the road, propelling them to a 8-2-1 regular season. If you're a home fan, that's now 21-5-1 that you have witnessed. That would be an incredible run.
Notice that in last four years, Snyder has played a grand total of 19 road games, with a record of just 4-15. That's not good. In conference, he's just 12-15-1 overall. That's fairly average, if not a bit below. But at home, against non-conference opponents, Snyder is now 12-0 over the last 4 seasons.
Bill Snyder rebuilt K-State football by scheduling home games he could win because he had the luxury of playing 4 non conference games. Had Snyder come to KSU even a few years later, when the Big XII came into existence, I'm not sure his rebuild works. Sure, he would have been in the weaker North, but he would have likely lost to Nebraska, Colorado and either Texas or Oklahoma every year, plus losing his road games, likely meaning he never gets to that sixth win necessary to go to a bowl. More TV games means his home fan base sees him going 5-4 instead of 5-1. That's huge.
The challenge is even greater for Beaty at KU because he can only get 3 non-conference games. It's important when building a program that you go on the road for at least one non-con game to get some exposure outside your regional area. Following the Snyder model means you're probably losing that game, meaning you're 2-1 in non-con, plus losses to Baylor, TCU, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and K-State perennially, plus road conference losses when you go to Ames, Austin, Morgantown or Lubbock. That's 7 losses annually basically automatically. You're on TV basically every week, meaning everybody sees Baylor hang 60 on you. Everybody will see TCU go for a zillion yards later this season. You can't build just by being competent because competence still means 7 or 8 losses every season.
Instead, you have to look to upgrade talent, even if that means that you suffer through mistakes. You have to know that you're going to get crushed for a couple years while you build that talent up Monday through Friday, knowing that no one will see results on Saturday either this season or next.
If I were Beaty, I would be redshirting almost every freshman I recruit for next year. Those kids are going to be the difference between you going 0-12 or 1-11 and going 1-11 or 2-10. But they may also be the difference as third year sophomores between going 6-6 and 7-5 or 8-4. That's the payoff.
But that payoff requires patience, because it will take 2 more recruiting classes (Class of 2016 and Class of 2017) before KU even has the numbers to compete in the Big XII, and that's assuming that in addition to adding 25 scholarship players, you also grab 5-7 premium walk-ons each year, to basically introduce 60+ new players into the program in the next two years. For what its worth, I think Beaty is doing this correctly.
I support what Beaty has done so far, but let's put the idea that he should follow Snyder's model to bed. We can't build up this team by simply taking what we have (as Snyder did) and drilling mistake free fundamentals. We don't have the talent for that, and we can't get away from the demands of the Big XII schedule to do that. We have to at least get to a Big XII minimum as far as talent is concerned because we have to be able to go 3-6 in conference to even sniff a bowl game.
