Bill Snyder is one of the most respected coaches in college football, but some of his former players say the Kansas State legend has been guilty of some questionable antics when it comes to handing out hardware.
Several former Kansas State players — some of whom went on record and others who chose to remain anonymous — told 247 Sports site GoPowercat that they never received their bowl rings after they left the program the semester after winning a bowl game. Many of them played on the 2017 Wildcats team, which capped off an 8-5 season with a win in the Cactus Bowl.
Ian Nordell, a redshirt freshman in 2017 who transferred, says he was among them.
“I haven’t got mine yet,” Nordell told GoPowercat. “They haven’t even reached out and didn’t reply when I messaged them about it. I was pretty disappointed that they didn’t send it to us like they promised. That’s something that you’d want to pass on to your kids.”
The same story was told by other players who left the program between 2017 and 2018 for various reasons. Bernard Goodwater, a freshman on the 2017 K-State team who transferred to Prairie View A&M, said he never got a ring and shared a screenshot of an exchange he had with a school official who informed him it was coming.
Players on teams before 2017 also say they were snubbed, as two who played on the 2013 Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl champions team shared the same experience. Snyder told GoPowercat that “graduation” determines whether a player gets a ring, but several players who left early to turn pro and never graduated say they received theirs.
“It’s just personal preference,” one anonymous graduate who received a ring said. “You can leave the right way and if (Snyder) doesn’t want to give you your stuff, he isn’t (going to).”
That’s obviously not a good look for Snyder, but we were reminded earlier this season of how the 79-year-old marches to his own beat. The longtime coach acknowledged that decisions about giving out rings would ultimately be his, so you have to wonder if there’s another side to some of the stories former players are telling.
