FSU’s Bowden wants ‘another championship’
It has been an eventful offseason for Bobby Bowdenas the football coach at Florida State.
The school has put a succession plan in place so that Jimbo Fisher, FSU’s offensive coordinator, will become coach when Bowden eventually retires.
After consecutive 7-6 seasons, some fans are starting to wonder if that is going to be sooner rather than later.
Things are not great off the field, either. Last December some of Bowden’s players were involved in an academic cheating scandal that will keep seven starters out of the first three games of the 2008 season. There have also been arrests (WR Preston Parker) and academic suspensions (OT Daron Rose) in recent weeks.
Bowden, who turns 79 on Nov. 8, remains undeterred.
He insists that it is possible to rebuild the program and win his third national championship. He begins this season leading Penn State’s Joe Paterno by just one win (373-372) on the NCAA’s Division I-A career victory list. On Monday evening Bowden sat down for an interview with the AJC to discuss these issues and more.
Q: Right now, do you know how much longer you want to coach?
A: Here is what I’m telling recruits. I’ve always signed a five-year contract so I could tell a young man and his family I would be there his whole career. Now I’m on a one-year contract. I’ll decide at the end of the year if I want to sign another one-year contract. I know I want to coach this year and I know I’m not going to coach until I’m 83. That’s all I know. But things are different now because for the first time I can see the end. I don’t know when it will be. But I can see it.
ajc.com
5/13/08
