<table> </table> MANHATTAN, Kan. | The fun part was watching Bill Snyder turn back into the old football coach again. There&#8217;s no telling how this wild decision to bring Bill Snyder back as Kansas State football coach will work out. Snyder is 69 years old. He hasn&#8217;t coached a football game in three years, and to be blunt, his team was drifting the two years before that. A lot will depend on the assistant coaches he hires and the support the school offers him. More on all that in a minute.</p><p>But for this day, it was just fun seeing Snyder transform over a one-hour press conference from the amiable and retired coach who had all day to chat back into the tenacious football man who raised Kansas State football from the pit of despair. He began the thing with an impassioned speech about family and community and, of course, a brief media lecture (he was not happy that word of his return to Kansas State leaked out before he could tell all of his family personally). By the end, his answers were shorter:</p><p>&#8220;What will be the first things you want to do as Kansas State coach?&#8221; he was asked.</p><p>&#8220;Well, the first thing I want to do is get out of here and get to work,&#8221; he grumped.</p><p>Yes, he became the old Bill again. Of course, the whole thing was a bit surreal. True, there had been rumbling rumors that Kansas State might bring back Snyder, the man who took over the worst college football program in America in 1989, had them in a bowl game five seasons later and put them in the national championship hunt within a decade.</p><p>But, rumors like this are usually too odd and far-fetched to ever really happen. North Carolina did not bring back Dean Smith to coach, and Nebraska did not bring back Tom Osborne to coach, and Georgia did not bring back Vince Dooley to coach, even though there were always whispers and rumors.</p><p>But Kansas State <em>did</em> bring back Snyder and &#8212; in one of the odder moments of this odd event &#8212; athletic director Bob Krause started off by explaining that Kansas State had three specific qualifications for this job. These qualifications were:</p><p>1. The coach must have a winning track record.</p><p>2. The coach must have the stature and leadership ability to build a good staff.</p><p>3. The coach must understand the Kansas State culture.</p><p>He then explained that Bill Snyder fit all three. I don&#8217;t know &#8212; doesn&#8217;t that seem like a weird thing to say? Bill Snyder&#8217;s NAME IS ON THE STADIUM. Is there anyone out there who really thinks that Snyder might not be qualified for the job? I don&#8217;t know, it just seemed out of place; Snyder is by far the most important figure in Kansas State football history, and Krause introduced him the way he might introduce some new administrative assistant he just hired.</p><p>After Krause confirmed that Snyder had been fully vetted, Kansas State president Jon Wefald stepped up and compared Bill to Joe Paterno, Ronald Reagan and John McCain. &#8220;It isn&#8217;t about age,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Did anyone think that John McCain at 72 years old was too old to be president?&#8221; It seemed to be kind of an unfortunate comparison.</p><p>Then it was time for Snyder, and he spoke passionately about how retiring three years ago was his biggest mistake. Snyder left coaching, he says, so he could spend time with his family. Only he did not realize that his family did not <em>want</em> him to quit coaching, they wanted him to do what he loved. Plus, they had their own lives to live. I remember spending some time with Snyder only a couple of months after he retired, and I was struck by the unmistakable feeling that he already missed coaching and felt out of place away from the football office where he spent 16 and 17 hours every day.