On Nov. 30, 1988, Iowa State had an all-time record with 100 more wins than Kansas State, and 20 more wins in its series against Kansas State. That day, “Futility U” introduced its new head coach, Bill Snyder, Iowa’s offensive coordinator for the past decade.
Twenty-eight years (and a deposed Prince) later, KSU is now in an exact tie with ISU at 516 wins apiece. (That’s an adjusted number; other standings will show one more win for ISU, at least until/unless KSU wins one of its last two games.)
The Purple Wizard celebrated (well, that might be too strong a word) his 200th career victory Saturday against Kansas. Snyder has beaten Iowa State and Kansas 21 times each; the only other opponents in double-digits are Missouri and Oklahoma State. He’s pulled the Wildcats within two games of tying their all-time series with the Cyclones; the closest comparable collapse is Minnesota going from 18 games up on Wisconsin at the end of the 1994 season to a tie as of Saturday.
Iowa State’s season is over, and the Cyclones are guaranteed to fall below the Wildcats in all-time win percentage, supplanting them as the fourth-worst power-conference school and second-worst public power-conference school (Indiana). Overall, a dozen power-conference teams have all-time percentages below .500; Kansas joined the list in the early 2010s but thanks to more games played overall still has far more wins than Kansas State.