Kansas State’s postseason memories pile up for Coach Bill Snyder

Kansas State, once the doormat of the college football world, has so many postseason memories during Bill Snyder’s two stints as coach that they seem to blur.

The Wildcats, who play UCLA in the Valero Alamo Bowl in San Antonio on Jan. 2, have been to 17 bowl games, plus three Big 12 Conference championship games, since then. Snyder has been the coach in 18 of those games.

Snyder was asked about the Wildcats’ 1998 Alamo Bowl appearance and said, “We had an opportunity to win the ballgame on one of those Hail Mary passes. Somehow we didn’t coach it as well as we should have. It was caught on the three-yard line. Tell me how that happens?”

Well, it didn’t.

That was the 1998 Big 12 championship game. The Wildcats, poised to appear in the national title game, squandered a 15-point lead and lost to Texas A&M, 36-33, in overtime. Kansas State nearly won the game at the end of regulation on a Hail Mary pass.

The Wildcats lost to Purdue, 37-34, in the 1998 Alamo Bowl when the Boilermakers drove 80 yards in the last 54 seconds. Quarterback Drew Brees threw a 24-yard touchdown pass to Isaac Jones with 30 seconds left.

It was lot easier to remember Kansas State’s postseason games prior to Snyder. There was one, a 14-3 loss to Wisconsin in the 1982 Independence Bowl.

Follow Chris Foster on Twitter @cfosterLATimes