Seminoles Need the Spirit of Coach Bowden to Pull off Upset
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It was his
dream job. As a Birmingham, Alabama native, Florida State football coach Bobby
Bowden had been coaching the Seminoles for a decade when the most high-profile head
coaching job in college football became available in 1987-for the Alabama
Crimson Tide.
Bowden had
amassed an 86-40-2 record during his first 10 years at Florida State, and was
on the very short list of candidates to replace Ray Perkins, who left and went
back to coach in the NFL. The other candidate was Bill Curry of Georgia Tech,
with a record of 31-43-4. Coach Bowden thought the interview was a formality.
It was not. Bowden faced a barrage of questions from a formal search committee.
Coach
Bowden bombed in the interview. The committee was not impressed with his
unprepared answers to prepared questions. Curry, on the other hand, aced the
interview and was offered the job. No one on that committee realized how much
that decision would change the fortunes of Alabama football, and the history of
college football.
If Bowden
had been hired at Alabama, it is a virtual certainty that he would have stayed
in Tuscaloosa for next 20+ years, and would have built the Crimson Tide into a
dynasty, pre-Nick Saban era.
Instead, that
search committee shackled the Crimson Tide with coaching turnover. Five
different coaches patrolled the Alabama sideline over a 20-year period: Curry,
Gene Stallings, Mike Dubose, Dennis Franchione, and Mike Shula. Saban took over
in 2007 and coached 17 seasons in Tuscaloosa, amassed a 206-29 record, and won
six national championships.
Gene
Stallings brought one national championship in 1992. It was the only one between
the legendary Bear Bryant’s last national championship in 1979 and Saban’s
first title with the Crimson Tide in 2009.
Coach
Bowden’s disappointment in getting passed over for his “dream job” turned into
renewed focus and passion, as he planted his own spear in the collective
backsides of his opponents and turned Florida State into a true national powerhouse
over his 34-year tenure in Tallahassee.
Elite recruiting
classes loaded with homegrown talent from the fertile prep ranks of the State
of Florida, ferocious physicality on defense, and elite weapons on offense were
his calling cards.
With the
dawning of the decade of the 90s, coach Bowden and his Seminoles had emerged
from the crucible, forged into one of the winningest programs in college
football. Florida State won 109 games during the decade, the most in college
football.
Bowden
coached his Seminoles to a No. 4 ranking or higher in the final AP Top 25 polls
every year of the 90s, won two national championships in 1993 and 1999, and one
of Bowden’s quarterbacks, Charlie Ward (1993) hoisted the Heisman Trophy.
So, that
spirit of the man himself and that of winning football created by the Bowden dynasty
will be hanging over his beloved Seminoles like a cloak of invincibility on
Saturday. Florida State travels to Tuscaloosa to take on the varsity eleven of
the school that had passed Bowden over, the No. 10 Alabama Crimson Tide.
Coach Mike
Norvell should use coach Bowden’s story as motivation to win a game that no one
associated with college football, fan or otherwise, believes that the Seminoles
can win. Like coach Bowden took his disappointment and turned it into
motivation to win and become a dominant college football program, so can
Norvell and his Florida State team to use the spirit of Bobby Bowden and the
winning tradition of Seminoles football to pull off what would be an epic
upset.
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