“I think the opportunity for the greatest turnaround in college football exists here today,” he said at his introductory news conference, “and it’s not one to be taken lightly.”

Snyder introduced a new logo to distance the Wildcats from their losing past, and he began to heavily recruit junior colleges. He steadily improved the roster, beat North Texas that first year to end the long winless streak and slowly won over skeptical fans.

The wins began to pile up: The Wildcats went 5-6 in Year 2, won seven games the next season and went 9-2-1 in 1993 for its second bowl berth ever. It began a streak of 11 postseason trips, highlighted by two Cotton Bowls and two trips to the Fiesta Bowl.

He was famous for eating once a day, lest he waste time dining. He once consulted a sleep expert to divine a way to get by on four hours a night. He also demanded a rigorous schedule of his assistants, a group that included the future coaches Bob Stoops, Bret Bielema, Dan McCarney and Jim Leavitt.

Kansas State started to slip in 2004 and 2005, a pair of losing seasons that appeared to take their toll on Snyder. And he surprised many by announcing his retirement, telling a packed room that he wanted to spend more time with his family.

He said he wanted a break. It did not last very long. After watching the program slide under Ron Prince, Snyder was lured out of retirement in 2009 for another rebuilding job. Two seasons later, the Wildcats were back in a bowl game; a season after that, they rose to No. 1 in the nation before playing in the Cotton Bowl, and a year after that, they won Snyder his second Big 12 championship and landed in the Fiesta Bowl.

Five more bowl games followed, even though the Wildcats never reached the same heights. It was a period marked by sustained success, if not the excellence of Snyder’s earlier years.