Bobby Bowden Says FSU “Fired” Him. Is Bowden Right To Be Bitter?

Posted by By Sports Session at 25 August, at 14 : 46 PM Print

This season begins the Jimbo Fisher Era at Florida State and while all the reports coming out of Tallahassee have been positive for the most part, we can’t determine if things are better until the season starts.  But the man that lead the Seminoles for over 30 years is not going away quietly as some initially thought he would.  Bobby Bowden conducted a recent interview with the Sporting News which will detail his final day s at Florida State.

The most interesting part of it is how Bowden details how he was “fired” from the program that he put in all those years to build. Some of his comments were that “Former FSU president T.K. Wetherell (who played for Bowden in the 1960’s) repeatedly told Bowden that he had a “lifetime contract”, but went back on the agreement that made that would have allowed Bowden to coach through the end of the 2010 season”.

All of this comes as Bowden gets ready to start a nationwide book tour promotion for the book he wrote named “Called to Coach: Reflectinos on Life, Faith and Football”.  Bowden is obviously bitter after being ousted from Florida State, but I think he is in the minority of people who thought it was a bad idea to push him out.  It was not personal for the administration at Florida State when they “ran him out of town”, the landscape of college football has changed and Bowden’s program was not keeping up.

I think the people at Florida State would have been willing to give Bowden a chance if they struggled and still beat Florida, but the Gators have dominated the Seminoles for the last four years.  Losing ground to an in state rival is a sure fire way to lose your job in college sports, and not to mention Miami was also heading back in a positive direction.  Losing to the South Florida Bulls did not  help his case as people started talking about Florida State was not part of the Big three Florida schools anymore.

The other factor that Bowden did not consider is Nick Saban returned to college football, and was inquiring about Jimbo Fisher’s availability to be his offensive coordinator again.  Fisher put pressure on Florida State to give him a clear timeline of when he would be able to take over as head coach, who wants to continue doing a majority of the coaching work, but the credit is going to the other guy?

We all know the main reason Bowden wanted to stay on as coach, he was hoping somehow to pass Joe Paterno for the record of most wins by a college football coach.  The NCAA put the nail in Bowden’s coffin when they took 12 wins away from his win total because of NCAA violations, Florida State unsuccessfully fought to get those wins reinstated.

So, that brings us to present day on the cusp of the first college football season in decades where Bobby Bowden is not on the sideline, we have him sounding like a bitter old man.  It begs the question if Bowden loves Florida State as much as he claims too, then was he too blind to see that wanting to give it one more shot was not working anymore?  I have heard some players on the team talk about some of the differences, and Jimbo seems to have instituted a lot of new positive changes, for one they have a nutritionist that outlines meals for the team.  That was non existent under Bowden, and in college football today every team has talented players, so if you are not doing the little things to give your team the edge then you are not going to win National Titles.  With all of that being said, did college football just pass Bobby Bowden?  Does he have a right to be bitter if he failed to adjust to the changing landscape of the college football environment?

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