Kansas State is past the hardest stretch of its schedule, but Bill Snyder doesn’t see easy games ahead

Want to get a rise out of Bill Snyder?

Try telling the Kansas State football coach that the Wildcats are past the hardest part of their schedule, that none of their remaining four games are against ranked teams and that their next four opponents have a combined record of 11-21.

If K-State, 3-5 overall and 0-5 in the Big 12, is to make a late-season charge and become eligible for a bowl game, now is the time to do it, with a hard conference schedule finally softening and top-15 teams Baylor, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and TCU in the rear-view mirror.

But Snyder doesn’t want that thinking anywhere near his locker room.

“Look, we have lost five ballgames in a row,” an animated Snyder said Thursday after a 31-24 loss to Baylor. “What do you mean the easy part of our schedule? We don’t have an easy part of our schedule. There isn’t any. We haven’t proven that we can win in the conference yet. We haven’t won in the conference.

“There isn’t anybody easy.”

Still, there is no denying K-State’s conference schedule was front-loaded. With the exception of Texas, 3-5 and 2-3, the Wildcats have been heavy underdogs in all of their league games. Baylor, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and TCU are the Big 12’s top four teams by a wide margin. They have a combined record of 31-1.

Few predicted K-State to compete, let alone win, against that lineup.

But expectations are about to change. K-State’s final four games are at Texas Tech, against Iowa State, at Kansas and back home against West Virginia. The Wildcats will likely be underdogs against the Red Raiders and favorites in the final three.

History is on their side. K-State hasn’t lost to any of those teams since 2009.

“We have all our toughest games out of the way,” K-State defensive back Kaleb Prewett said. “We have got four games left, and I feel like we just need to get on a roll.”

Some players think the team is close to a breakthrough.

“We are starting to make strides, for sure,” receiver Kody Cook said. “We just need to keep improving. … We need a lot of leaders. We need people to step up. We have guys stepping up, we just aren’t catching the breaks that we need. We have played a lot of great teams and Baylor was another great team, but I feel like we left one out there.”

Cook has felt that way often during K-State’s five-game losing streak, the team’s first under Snyder since 2005.

A 36-34 loss at Oklahoma State stung. So did a 52-45 setback against TCU. The Baylor defeat was more heartbreak.

But the Wildcats showed fight in those games, losing by a total of 16 points. That same effort could translate to victories against lesser competition.

“We have been making statements the whole year,” Prewett said. “We came out and made a statement against TCU. We made a statement against Oklahoma State. We kind of fell back a little bit when we played Oklahoma. We made another statement (Thursday). We could really be making statements if we scored more points and held them a couple more times and came out with a victory.”

Of course, K-State has also shown what is possible when it plays poorly. It lost to Oklahoma 55-0 and looked out of sync in a 23-9 loss to Texas.

Defensive tackle Will Geary wondered if K-State players got big-headed in those games, thinking they had proven something against Oklahoma State and TCU. After the Texas loss, fellow defensive tackle Travis Britz called out his teammates for accepting moral victories.

Snyder followed his lead Thursday, shooting down the thought of taking positives away from another narrow defeat.

He understandbly wants more. Perhaps that is why he is unwilling to acknowledge the friendly upcoming schedule.

“This losing streak is something we are looking forward to changing,” K-State running back Charles Jones said. “We are going to go into practice this week and do something about it. Coach Snyder keeps us on. He keeps us fighting. The way he runs his program, he preaches finishing. That is what we are accustomed to and that is what we are going to do.”

This story was originally published November 6, 2015 at 1:08 PM with the headline "Kansas State is past the hardest stretch of its schedule, but Bill Snyder doesn’t see easy games ahead."