Bill Snyder has been around Kansas State football for 28 years. He mentioned that when asked to explain why he blocked backup receiver Corey Sutton's transfer request to 35 schools.
Twenty-eight years. Which means he's been around long enough to have known better.
Snyder finally got the hint Friday afternoon, releasing Sutton from his scholarship and allowing him to move to a school of his choice. That came after intense scrutiny in the days following Synder's attempts to justify his refusal to release Sutton.
It was the latest example - but likely not the last - of an NCAA rule that needs fixed, a rule that sways the balance of power too far toward the coach and the school and away from the athlete.
Now, Snyder wasn't saying Sutton couldn't leave. What he was saying was he wouldn't release Sutton to transfer. So if Sutton went to another school without that release, he couldn't be on athletic scholarship for the year he has to sit out as a transfer. It's a scholarship that Sutton said he needed to stay in school.
In his first attempt to defend the decision, Snyder told a Kansas City radio station he believes a commitment should go both ways.
"It's my commitment that once we have signed the youngster, that we're committed to him as long as he behaves himself," he told Sports Radio 810. "I accept a youngster that comes into our program as making a similar commitment with a handshake and obviously a signed piece of paper."
In Snyder's case, sure, he's probably not going anywhere. After all, he's been with Kansas State since 1989 (except for that span from 2005-09 when he retired, then came back). But what about the young up-and-coming coach who looks a kid in the eye, says he's going to be there for him his entire collegiate career, then jets off to a newer, bigger job at the end of the next season? What happened to that coach's commitment? And what happens to that player, now at a school playing for a coaching staff he didn't sign with?
Then came Snyder's second attempt to defend the decision, where he said he believes that allowing one backup to transfer would open the Pandora's box of too many backups transferring.
"The feeling all along, if you're a No. 2, you probably want to be a No. 1," he told a gaggle of reporters Tuesday. "If you have the option to leave and you have 22 No. 2s on your team leaving, you don't have much of a team left. It doesn't make sense to not try to prevent that from happening."
Except that No. 2s leaving to attempt to become No. 1s happens all the time in college athletics. Marshall lost four backup quarterbacks for that reason. Blake Frohnapfel left when he realized Rakeem Cato was the set-in-stone starter in 2013. Gunnar Holcombe and Cole Garvin both transferred after Michael Birdsong was named starting quarterback after the 2015 spring game. Then Birdsong transferred after true freshman Chase Litton usurped him during the 2015 season.
In Frohnapfel's case, he transferred to Massachusetts and threw for 6,264 yards and 39 touchdowns over two seasons. If he stayed in Huntington, he'd have been a mop-up guy for the leading passer in Marshall history. Yet he was able to thrive in a new environment. So why should a kid be robbed of that chance to just sit on a bench for much of a game?
And players transfer for plenty of reasons. They get homesick. A new coach comes in who runs a scheme the player doesn't fit. Why keep a kid around and make him feel like a square peg in a round hole? Why make someone stay where he doesn't want to stay?
The argument has been made that so many resources have been put into a player - scholarships, training and more, the worth of which could total six figures - that the school wants a return on its investment. Yet schools will spend seven figures a year on coaches and they can hop to the next job with little resistance.
Snyder is a revered college football coach, but he was dead wrong on this matter and his attempts at explanations made him look no better. At least, he relented (and apologized for, during his second defense of his decision, claiming that Sutton had failed two drug tests). Yet this won't be the last time we hear about a school telling a player where he or she can and can't transfer to. For instance, Pitt has blocked men's basketball player Cam Johnson from going to North Carolina as a graduate transfer. So Johnson has completed his degree at Pitt, still has eligibility left, but isn't allowed to attend the school of his choice. This wheel will keep on spinning.
The easiest way to solve this in the future is to avoid the problem altogether. Amend NCAA transfer rules so players have greater freedom and ease to move to a school where they're happier. All sides would be better off.
Contact Derek Redd at 304-348-1712 or derek.redd@wvgazettemail.com. Follow him on Twitter @derekredd.