Kansas State coach Bill Snyder's daily goal is simple, or at least sounds simple: improvement. Every day. Finish better than you started.

If every one of his players -- and Snyder himself, even as he creeps into his third decade of coaching -- does that, they'll be where the need to be.

So when Snyder talks expectations for 2010, it shouldn't be a surprise that the "I" word -- Snyder's MO -- is quick to make an appearance.

"It's really the same as its always been, it's not anything different. We are where we are, and the only way to get better as a football team is to make that improvement," Snyder said. "That's our daily goal, that's our seasonal goal. There's no guarantee that just because I say that, that it's going to take place, but I think that's all you can ask for."

They'll need to improve to beat UCLA on Saturday, a team that solidly beat Snyder and his Wildcats last season 23-9 in Los Angeles.

The Bruins are fighting to prove they belong in the top half of the Pac-10 and don't fit the description of Snyder's preferred nonconference opponent. But Snyder's successor and predecessor, Ron Prince, signed the Wildcats up for the home-and-home, and now it's up to Snyder to avoid the sweep.

While he does see the game as one he wouldn't schedule, he doesn't see it as a game that could serve as a measuring stick for the Wildcats.

"I just really haven't thought about it that way," Snyder said. "They probably sit on an equal basis with a good portion of the Big 12 Conference, so I think at the end of the day, when the game is over, you can probably sit back and look at it and make some kind of comparison."

But there's a catch.

"That comparison would only be accurate at that given point and time," Snyder said.

Solely because of Snyder's mantra, of course.

"Our process is to try to improve day in and day out, and week in and week out, and I'd like to think that however we finish that ball game, that we would -- barring severe injury -- that we would have an opportunity to certainly make improvement as we make our way toward the Big 12 Conference schedule," he said. "So I think we'd be a different team four weeks from now than we will be at the end of the game on Saturday. I think it's a hard projection to make. Things change over time."

The Wildcats hope that change is for the better.