No. 20 K-State bucks Big 12 trend with ground-based offense

MANHATTAN, Kan.—Kansas State coach Bill Snyder has spent most of the past three decades at the forefront of offensive innovation, going back to his pass-happy days as the offensive coordinator at Iowa.

Indeed, it was his air-it-out style that turned the Wildcats from doormat to dominant.

When he arrived in the late 1980s, everyone in the old Big Eight was grinding out games. Oklahoma ran its vaunted wishbone behind the likes of Jamelle Holieway, Nebraska pounded defenses with I backs such as Lawrence Phillips and Kenny Clark, and even perennial also-ran programs had ground-oriented offenses—think of Barry Sanders at Oklahoma State and Troy Davis at Iowa State.

Snyder bucked the trend by throwing, throwing and throwing some more. And his Big Eight brethren were unprepared to stop quarterbacks putting up the kind of gaudy numbers that are now commonplace.

All of which leads to a delicious bit of irony: Now that everybody else is throwing the ball all over the yard, Snyder has implemented a bulldozer-like offense that harkens back to yesteryear, and it is creating problems all over again for defenses that are now accustomed to defending spread offenses.

"If you're going to be different," Snyder said not long ago, "you had better be good at what you are different at . ... If you are different and good at what you do, then yes, it does create some problems in terms of not being able to prepare week-in and week-out for the same type of offense or defense."