Football at Kansas State has a lengthy history of producing outstanding players. Kansas State has a long history, spanning from the late 1900s with players like Gary Spani and Michael Bishop to more recent additions like Deuce Vaughn and Cooper Beebe.
It is a great honor to be named a consensus all-American. It indicates that, for their position, the player was the best in the nation. Being chosen for the first team in at least half of the five organizations that choose the All-America teams is the requirement to be a Consensus All-American.
Thirteen players from Kansas State have made the All-America squad; two of them did so twice during their collegiate careers. Now let’s examine each player’s profile and the season in which they were selected as an All-American.
Gary Spani, who was named an All-American in 1977, leads us off. This occurred during Kansas State’s dark era prior to Bill Snyder’s program reconstruction. Spani holds numerous other honors, such as being the first player ever inducted into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame, the College Football Hall of Fame, and the Kansas State Athletics Hall of Fame.
Spani finished his career with 543 tackles and was selected three times to the All-Big Eight team while attending Kansas State. He averaged 17 tackles per game in 1977, the year he was named an All-American. In four different games, he had more than 20 tackles.
One of the greatest punters in Kansas State football history is Sean Snyder, the son of Bill Snyder, who played punting for the Wildcats. In 1992, the year he was named an All-American, Snyder averaged over forty yards on punt returns and nearly forty yards on punt returns.
In the Bill Snyder era, Snyder was the first Kansas State player to be named an All-American and the first since Gary Spani in 1977. In 1992, Snyder totaled 3,572 yards on 80 punt plays.
The logo of the Kansas State Wildcats
Chris Canty is among the two Kansas State athletes to have received two All-American selections during their careers. Canty was alive when Kansas State was a member of the Big 8 and lived through the Big 8’s 1996 transformation into the Big 12.
Canty was the player the opposing offense circled on the roster in both of his 1995 and 1996 All-American seasons. With eight interceptions in 2995, Canty set a single-season record at Kansas State and led college football in interceptions returned for touchdowns with two of those interceptions. When he discovered he had been selected for the first All-American team and had led the Big 8 in most defensive stats, he was only a sophomore.
Even better, Canty did not allow a touchdown during the entire 1996 season, allowing just 13 completions on 335 snaps. Canty set another record at Kansas State by concluding his career with 56 passes defended and 14 interceptions.
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