But summarily dismissed by just about every K-State fan I know.

and help bury what’s left of the program.

Who did they follow?

Prince – Bill Snyder (66% win / 58% conference), I’m not up on my Kstate history, but Ill just go ahead and assume he was the greatest coach in the schools history seeing how the program had averaged 3.2 wins a year leading up to him, and 8 wins under him. In addition KSU had been to one bowl game before (1982) and won their conference only once before (1934). Snyder won the big 12 once, won or tied the north 4 times, and went to 11 bowl games (6-5).

Hawkins – Gary Barnett (56% win/ 61% conference)… well Ill go ahead and just quote Wikipedia.

In 1999, Barnett left Northwestern after eight seasons to become the 22nd head coach of Colorado. His career at Colorado was generally successful; however, he was disgraced and his reputation tarnished by a recruiting scandal, insensitive off-field remarks and failure to maintain the on-field success of his predecessors. Colorado was alleged to have enticed recruits to come to Colorado with sex and alcohol during recruiting visits causing the school to self-impose harsher recruiting rules than any other Division I-A school. That scandal, coupled with Barnett’s dismissive comments about former placekicker Katie Hnida, who alleged that she had been raped by a teammate, led to Barnett’s temporary suspension in 2004 during the off-season. Barnett was reinstated before the start of the 2004 season, and went on to coach the team to an 8–5 record, earning Big 12 Coach of the Year honors along the way. Barnett is more commonly known for these two events than his coaching performance.

Barnett continued as coach in 2005, leading the Buffaloes to a 7–2 start. However, on December 9, 2005, following consecutive losses to Iowa State and Nebraska in the Buffaloes’ last two regular-season games, and a 70–3 blowout by the eventual national champion Texas Longhorns in the Big 12 championship game, Barnett’s contract was bought out in a $3 million settlement. Colorado then went on to play in the Champs Sports Bowl losing to Clemson. The loss is officially credited to Barnett, even though he was no longer with Colorado.

Colorado was the Big 12 North Champion 4 of the 7 years under Barnett, and Big 12 Champion one of those years (2001). Colorado was also ranked #2 in the nation and part of a controversy with the BCS Poll in the 2001 season when the Nebraska Cornhuskers were selected ahead of Colorado for the National Championship game, even though Colorado had just beat Nebraska 62–36.

In June 2007, the Buffaloes were placed under probation for two years and fined $100,000 for undercharging 133 student-athletes for meals over a six year span (2000–01 to 2005–06 encompassing Barnett’s tenure at Colorado) resulting in the major infraction.2 The football program, with 86 of the 133 student-athletes involved, also lost one scholarship for the next three seasons.2

Hawkins may not be winning, but hes as solid a guy and straight shooter as it comes, which is something Colorado desperately needed following Barnett. Not to mention he managed to pull in a recruit as highly touted as our boy Scott. Thats probably why get gets a year or two more than Prince. Also CU’s injuries this year to the O-line are almost comical, well for us, for CU its just sad.

I posted on this exact topic over at The Ralphie Report and have written two extensive posts about it at BOTC. It’s all about progress. Also, Hawkins numbers are skewed by the terrible first season he had, and anybody and everybody should have expected that he was going to have a tough time with the disarray CU was in when Barnett left (not to mention that he was a first year coach, and coaches often have difficult first seasons). He improved last year, going to a bowl game. His recruiting has been solid. If his offensive line hadn’t been decimated by injuries this year, I have little doubt CU would have won 7 or 8 games.

Contrast that with Prince, who has exhibited regression every single season in Manhattan. Contrary to what was posted below, there was a respectable amount of talent left when Snyder retired, the problem was that our assistant coaching staff had been depleted by the departure of guys like Bob Stoops, Mike Stoops, Mark Mangino, Brent Venables, Bret Bielema, and Jim Leavitt. The guys still around were not nearly the equal of the previous assistant coaches, and the results showed. Then, magically, Prince goes to a bowl game in his first year with primarily Snyder’s players, and has regressed each season since then.

I have written extensively on this subject <a href=“http://www.bringonthecats.com/2008/11/6/654934/why-the-comparison-isn-t-v’>here and ”http://www.bringonthecats.com/2008/10/23/641246/why-the-comparison-isn-t-v">here at BOTC, so I’m not going to rehash everything I said here. But we have seen significant regression in total wins, overall competitiveness, and recruiting during Prince’s tenure. Sure, if we gave him another year, he might have gotten things turned around. But the weight of the evidence points in the opposite direction, toward us digging a hole that would have taken years from which to recover.