Of all the cultures that pollute football these days -- you’ve read, heard or seen the worst lately -- Kansas State’s is different. Pure. Better. Maybe the best.
It’s seemingly risky to proclaim anything absolutely good about the sport at the moment. Today’s hero might be tomorrow’s bum. But at K-State they are all football equals.
So equal that when No. 5 Auburn travels to Manhattan, Kan., on Thursday night, the Tigers will be facing what seems to be an unprecedented roster structure. Fifty-eight K-State players -- approximately half the roster -- are current or former walk-ons.
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Perhaps the second-biggest non-conference game of the season will be decided by guys like defensive end Ryan Mueller. The Big 12’s reigning defensive lineman of the year was turned down by the likes of Missouri State. In high school, his mother handed him $100 if he would just visit Benedictine College, a nearby small Catholic NAIA school in Atchison, Kan.
Mueller was set on taking his chances as a grunt, walking on before Bill Snyder’s discerning eyes. Last season, the one-time, no-count prospect tied the school record for sacks.
There are other examples, decades worth of them. All-Big 12 center B.J. Finney came from tiny Andale, Kan., as a state wrestling champion. There are five junior college walk-ons at K-State, two of which who have started games this season.
“College football does a great job of filtering out the weak-minded,” says Mueller, now a senior in his second year on scholarship.
“I thought, I’m going to work as hard as I possibly can to get that scholarship. OK, now I’m going to work as hard as I possibly can to get to No. 2 on the depth chart. Now I’m going to work has hard as I possibly can to get to No. 1.”
Now the reigning SEC champs are going to have to deal with a kid who had to sell his high school landscape business to afford tuition. The highest-ranked non-conference opponent to visit Manhattan in 45 years will be facing high-motor subset of players who have to be asking, “How hard can this be?” The walk-ons have stared into the depths of a future without football. At least on this level.
Kody Cook hadn’t taken a snap all season at quarterback for Hutchinson (Kan.) Community College in 2012. But in the Salt City Bowl -- don’t ask -- the wideout was forced behind center and accounted for six touchdowns. K-State followed with an offer to become a preferred walk-on.
Cook started in his second career game at K-State -- against Iowa State in Week 2.
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Fourteen walk-ons are in the two-deep, almost a third of those 44 players. There are 20 if you count the specialists.
“My son was walking in as the 125th player in the summer with nothing to do but school and football,” said former K-State quarterback Stan Weber whose son Stanton walked on as a receiver.
“He didn’t get second-class citizenship or funny looks. They treat the no-chance walk-ons with the utmost respect.”
Because of his connection to the program -- Weber played QB in the 1980s and does radio color commentary -- he was able to arrange a meeting with Snyder. Stanton had some interest from William Jewell, a Division III school in Liberty, Mo. But that was it. Snyder had created a culture that gave hope to those trying to become the next Mueller.
“Nobody told my son, ‘You’re going to be great,” until Bill Snyder,” Weber said. “He told him, ‘You can be anything.’"
Maybe that’s K-State’s secret. There is no entitlement. Anywhere. There is equality and respect in each player’s attempt to be great. Finney is the first K-State offensive lineman to become a three-time captain.
Snyder has become a genius at finding “bounce back” players, those who may have underachieved in other programs but prospered at K-State.
Arthur Brown was a highly sought after linebacker from Wichita. At Miami, Brown was edging toward bust status, making 15 tackles in two seasons. At K-State, he became an All-American in 2012.
“There are no walk-ons in the lockerroom when you get to K-State,” said former Wildcat quarterback Matt Miller, now the head coach at Garden City (Kan.) Community College. “You don’t know who is a walk-on and who isn’t.
“I came from Texas A&M where they were treated like red-headed step children.”
Miller transferred from A&M, leading the Wildcats to a 10-2 record in 1995. Two of his top receiving targets were former walk-ons Mitch Running and Tyson Schweiger.
You may have heard of one Snyder’s all-time walk-ons, Jordy Nelson.
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Mueller was “discovered” at a K-State camp near his suburban Kansas City home.
“They ran me to death, like a dog, to see how tough I was,” Mueller said. “To see if I could even make it. They opened a door for me. It was love at first sight.”
Obviously the routine isn’t for everybody. Mueller was that puppy that constantly lapped up the attention, the work load.
“It’s not like Coach Snyder walks in and sprinkle fairy dust on us -- on his walk-ons ...,” he said. “There were definitely some days where like, ‘Wow, this really sucks.’ If you don’t think about quitting something is wrong with you.”
But the payoff is worth it -- playing time, praise. Iowa State coach Paul Rhoads came up to Mueller after last year’s game, poked a finger in his chest and said, "You’re a hell of a player, man. I love watching you play.”
Between walk-ons and junior college transfers, Snyder has goosed the establishment. Loading up on too many of either -- history has proven -- can take a program down. As recently as 2008, Ron Prince tried to duplicate Snyder’s strategy signing 19 jucos out of a class of 32.
Prince, who replaced Snyder in 2006, was out of a job after the 2008 season. Snyder returned and won a share of the Big 12 and a BCS bowl berth in 2012. Turns out, not all sequels are bad.
“The insinuation that jucos don’t do well in the classroom is not accurate,” K-State AD John Currie pointed out. “Our APR is the best in the Big 12.”
The axis of K-State and Auburn philosophies may converge at jucos. Snyder was 23 on the roster. Auburn has 12, including quarterback Nick Marshall and leading rusher Cameron Artis-Payne.
Snyder battled Gus Malzahn for Marshall out of Garden City. It was close and by Miller’s measure Snyder was heartbroken at the recruiting loss. Marshall had a previous relationship with Malzahn who had recruited him at Arkansas State.
That “loss” was fixed with the addition of Jake Waters. In his second year at K-State, the Iowa Western community college transfer, is the only quarterback to lead an FBS conference in rushing.
“When guys get there from a juco they’re made to feel as family,” Miller said. “All their life they’ve been made to feel as outcasts.”
Snyder probably has never landed a five-star recruit. Only a handful of four-stars. In Manhattan, you’re not recruiting to the scenery or even the facilities. You’re recruiting to an ideal in the nation’s 34th most populous state.
There is a long history of in-state former walk-ons becoming captains. Mueller is now one of them, one of the 58.
