What does recruiting NFL talent have to do with results on the field?  Apparently a lot, according to the numbers I compiled.  I decided to look at the entire Bill Snyder era to get the complete picture.  I left the Ron Prince years in there because Snyder had at least a small role in recruiting the players that Ron Prince coached.  I broke it down by the year of the NFL draft, the number of K-State players selected that year and the record of the K-State football team the previous year.  The numbers are below.

Year	Players selected in NFL Draft	K-State record previous year
1990	1	1-10
1992	3	7-4
1994	1	9-2-1
1995	2	9-3
1996	1	10-2
1997	2	9-3
1998	1	11-1
1999	6	11-2
2000	5	11-1
2001	6	11-3
2002	6	6-6
2003	4	11-2
2004	2	11-4
2005	1	4-7
2006	1	5-6
2007	3	7-6
2008	2	5-7
2009	1	5-7
2010	1	6-6
2011	1	7-6
2012	1	10-3
2013	3	11-2
2014	1	8-5
2015	1	9-4
2016	1	6-7
2017	2	9-4
2018	1	8-5

A couple of observations:

1)  Bill Snyder was able to compete for the league championship in the Big 8 and the early days of the Big 12 without a lot of NFL talent on the roster.  This is probably why people who remember those years say “Bill Snyder doesn’t need NFL talent to compete.”  Back then he didn’t.  However, he never really competed for the very top of the Big 8.  He usually lost big to Oklahoma, Nebraska and Colorado, but was able to put together respectable records.

2)  From 1998 to 2003, Snyder had a lot of NFL talent on his roster.  He was consistently competing for the league title every season and the lowest number of K-State players drafted in the NFL draft during those years was four.  The only anomaly was in 2002 when the team went 6-6.  That team  under performed that season because the numbers show that there was a lot of NFL talent on that roster.

3)  From 2009 to 2016, there was one player drafted each year with the exception of 2013, when three players were drafted.  It just so happens that the previous year K-State won the Big 12 championship with a lot of help from those three players.

4)  One can reasonably assume that until K-State can get more NFL-caliber players on the roster that the current trend will continue.  Mediocre bowl games every season.  While it is true that once upon a time Bill Snyder did not need NFL talent to compete for the league championship, he does now.

What do you think?  Anything I missed?  Is there much NFL-caliber talent on the current roster?