When Bill Snyder first arrived at Kansas State, he carried rather improbable recruiting hopes, given the dilapidated state of the program.
"I really thought, 'We're going to go compete for every 5-star and 4-star player out there,'" Snyder said in a phone interview with ESPN.com. "Reality hit home rather quickly."
That reality forced Snyder to scrap his pie-in-the-sky vision of luring blue-chippers to Manhattan.
He replaced that with a practical yet unconventional master plan built on unearthing prospects other schools would be to prone to overlook.
That recruiting strategy proved to be a pillar for Snyder's "Manhattan Miracle.