MANHATTAN, Kan. | It wasn&rsquo;t that long ago that the Governor&rsquo;s Cup lived in a Kansas State trophy case on a year-round basis.</p><p>Like he is now, Bill Snyder was the Kansas State football coach back then, and he recalls winning the hardware so many times that the award presentations following all those victories against cross-state rival Kansas became &ldquo;matter of fact&rdquo; for his players.</p><p>They listened to the governor talk, posed for pictures with the trophy and moved on.</p><p>But for this group of Wildcats, who for the most part had never seen the silver prize up close before beating Kansas 17-10 on Saturday at Snyder Family Stadium, the experience was unparalleled. K-State players were so overjoyed to see the cup in their locker room that they climbed over each other to touch it. When center Wade Weibert got to the front of the line, he realized something special.</p><p>&ldquo;It was kind of like, <em>we&rsquo;re</em> the football school this year,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;We haven&rsquo;t owned that title in the last couple years.&rdquo;</p><p>No, the Wildcats haven&rsquo;t. When Snyder decided to retire four years ago, the cup moved east. After winning 12 of 13 in the series &mdash; and 11 straight at one point &mdash; K-State lost all three Sunflower Showdowns in Snyder&rsquo;s absence. But now that he&rsquo;s back in Manhattan, so is the Governor&rsquo;s Cup.</p><p>&ldquo;The things we&rsquo;ve gone through since Coach Snyder got here, he&rsquo;s changed the persona of this entire team and changed a lot of people&rsquo;s attitude toward the game,&rdquo; said wide receiver Lamark Brown, who caught three passes for 43 yards and a touchdown. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not really a surprise to me that we&rsquo;ve come out and played the way we have.&rdquo;</p><p>Of course, K-State didn&rsquo;t have Daniel Thomas during its three-year losing streak to Kansas either. As he proved Saturday by rushing for 185 yards and a touchdown, that&rsquo;s a big difference, too.</p><p>He took 24 handoffs in the game and didn&rsquo;t lose yards once. He powered ahead for big gains, amassed most of K-State&rsquo;s 332 yards of offense and on several runs refused to go down. Even with a slew of defenders tugging at him.</p><p>&ldquo;What I really appreciated about Daniel were the second and third efforts,&rdquo; Snyder said. &ldquo;He carried a lot of tacklers today.&rdquo;</p><p>Said Thomas: &ldquo;That was fun, carrying all those people on my back.&rdquo;</p><p>Added quarterback Grant Gregory: &ldquo;Daniel is a beast. This is his first year ever playing running back, and I think he&rsquo;s the best running back in the conference.&rdquo;</p><p>That argument certainly could be made now. Thomas, a junior transfer, has gained 1,087 yards on 192 carries and could end up as the Big 12&rsquo;s leading rusher.</p><p>With two games remaining, Thomas and his team have a lot to look forward to. With the win, K-State improved to 6-4 overall and 4-2 in conference play. That record keeps the Wildcats on top of the Big 12 North standings, a half game ahead of Nebraska, and brings them to within a win of securing a bowl bid. </p><p>The Wildcats won this Sunflower Showdown on a key series of plays that stretched across the end of the first half and into the second. After kicking a field goal for an early 3-0 lead, K-State fell behind 7-3 with 8 minutes, 18 seconds remaining in the second quarter when KU quarterback Todd Reesing, who completed 27 of 41 passes for 241 yards and a score, connected with Dezmon Briscoe for a 17-yard touchdown pass.</p><p>But with 36 seconds remaining in the half, Emmanuel Lamur jumped on a Reesing fumble &mdash; one of his three turnovers &mdash; at the KU 43-yard line and the Wildcats took advantage. Sixteen seconds later, Gregory hit Brown for a 31-yard touchdown and gave K-State a 10-7 lead.