There are folks on here that believe that Paul Wulff was the architect of the worst football teams in college football history and that no coach has ever had to face the challenges that Leach faced when he took over the WSU job. It's often said that no other program was as bad as WSU was when Leach was hired.
My go-to story of a team that went from terrible to great is KSU. I personally feel that no coach has ever done a greater job than Bill Snyder has done at Kansas State. I've been told that KSU was a lot better off than WSU by a lot of measures, but none have actually been presented. From what I've seen, the only way that the KSU job in 1989 was better than the WSU job in 2012 is that the Big 8 featured a lot of terrible teams at the time and it wasn't that hard to win. Of course, that makes KSU's 0-21-1 record in Stan Parrish's last two years all the more damning.
In the six years prior to Snyder taking over, KSU went 9-55-2. They finished winless twice. They went 3-40-1 in the last four seasons before Snyder took over. Those three wins came against 1-10 Missouri, 3-8 KU and 1-AA Western Illinois. In the two seasons before Snyder took over KSU, the Wildcats were outscored by an average of 14-40. Between 1983 and 1988, KSU lost to 1-AA teams four times. Of their 21 losses under Stan Parrish, 10 were against teams with losing records.
As bad as Wulff was at WSU and as much as he needed to be fired, I just can't see how anyone could say that KSU in 1988 was in better shape than WSU. This isn't a puff piece trying to make Paul Wulff look good but I'm curious to see what positive things that someone can say about KSU in December 1988 (or from 1983 to 1988) to suggest that KSU wasn't the biggest dumpster fire in the history of college football when Snyder took over.
My go-to story of a team that went from terrible to great is KSU. I personally feel that no coach has ever done a greater job than Bill Snyder has done at Kansas State. I've been told that KSU was a lot better off than WSU by a lot of measures, but none have actually been presented. From what I've seen, the only way that the KSU job in 1989 was better than the WSU job in 2012 is that the Big 8 featured a lot of terrible teams at the time and it wasn't that hard to win. Of course, that makes KSU's 0-21-1 record in Stan Parrish's last two years all the more damning.
In the six years prior to Snyder taking over, KSU went 9-55-2. They finished winless twice. They went 3-40-1 in the last four seasons before Snyder took over. Those three wins came against 1-10 Missouri, 3-8 KU and 1-AA Western Illinois. In the two seasons before Snyder took over KSU, the Wildcats were outscored by an average of 14-40. Between 1983 and 1988, KSU lost to 1-AA teams four times. Of their 21 losses under Stan Parrish, 10 were against teams with losing records.
As bad as Wulff was at WSU and as much as he needed to be fired, I just can't see how anyone could say that KSU in 1988 was in better shape than WSU. This isn't a puff piece trying to make Paul Wulff look good but I'm curious to see what positive things that someone can say about KSU in December 1988 (or from 1983 to 1988) to suggest that KSU wasn't the biggest dumpster fire in the history of college football when Snyder took over.