Bill Snyder was the center of one of the biggest coaching stories last week when Brett McMurphy reported Kansas State officials arranged a head-coach-in-waiting situation with then-Colorado defensive coordinator Jim Leavitt, which fell through at the eleventh hour when Snyder nixed the deal.
Sources later told us that no such deal was ever in place.
Kansas State eventually released this statement:
As has been the case and stated many times, Coach Snyder is our football coach and will remain coach until he decides otherwise.
Snyder appeared on the Big 12 teleconference Monday and confirmed a different story, one that no one ever reported: that he attempted to hire Leavitt as Kansas State's linebackers coach after Leavitt had already joined the Oregon staff.
“I appreciate Jim a great deal,” Snyder said, via the Wichita Eagle. “He has always been a close friend, and I would love to have had him here as a position coach, but I didn’t have a coordinator spot for him, so I couldn’t offer him that.”
Snyder didn't explain when the offer occurred, but the logical time would be after linebackers coach Mike Cox left the staff in mid-March.
While assuredly made with good intentions, the offer is so bizarre it borders on insulting to Leavitt.
Leavitt signed a 4-year contract at Oregon in December that pays him $1.15 million annually, making him the highest-paid Pac-12 assistant coach on record. Cox earned $305,000 a year as K-State's linebackers coach.
Snyder's story Monday is just another bizarre chapter into Kansas State's already uneven process of identifying his successor -- eventually.