Bobby Bowden On All The Red Tape These Days: ‘You know, you can’t drive somebody down the street, you can’t wear a redshirt on Wednesday.’
July 30, 2009 – 6:30 am by Michael Bean
Florida State Seminoles head coach Bobby Bowden will turn 80 years old this November. Bowden, who is set to start his 34th year as the head coach of the Seminoles, sports the second most win ins Division 1 history behind only Joe Paterno of Penn State with 382. His Seminoles program has floundered in recent years and also been clouded by looming academic scandals, poor graduation rates and multiple player arrests. Don’t count him out just yet though – at least so says the Coach himself. To his credit, he’s never shied away from a challenge or setting the bar high for his program. At nearly 80 years of age, he doesn’t seem ready to start any time soon. The two-time national championship winning coach joined WFNZ in Charlotte to talk about the upcoming 2009 football season and in typical Bobby Bowden fashion
On starting the 2009 schedule against rival Miami, a game that usually came later in the year for both squads:
“Yeah it is different. Let’s see, last year we opened with someone else. We opened with the University of Miami about four times, and then we quit. Now the reason we quit – I don’t want to open with them! They don’t want to open with us. We agreed not to open with each other. This year, the ACC and ABC, they said they want that game. I didn’t realize it has the national impact that it has but they insisted that we play that game. We had to change our schedule to get it. So I got nasty Miami to open.”
On the development of quarterback Christian Ponder and how he thinks he’ll fare during his redshirt junior year:
“Oh if he can stay healthy, I think he’ll do good. He stayed healthy last year and played all 14 of our ball games. Played real well. You know, the years that we were successful at Florida State, we never had less than a junior redshirt quarterback. You look at all our great quarterbacks…they were all redshirt juniors before they were starters. Now the last ten years, we’ve started three freshmen. You gotta be lucky if you think you’re going to win with a freshman quarterback. So now for the first time in a long time, we got a redshirt junior. He’s unique, he started every game for us last year and he’s already graduated from college when he was only a sophomore. Now this year, he’ll have his Master’s Degree, you know? The next year he’ll have his doctorate!”
On all the rules in the game of college football today and if he thinks there are too many regulations for coaches to follow:
“Well you know, it really is. If people would do right, you wouldn’t have to have rules. Somebody breaks a little rule, they throw in a big rule. You know, you can’t drive somebody down the street, you can’t wear a redshirt on Wednesday. They do! They have all these little rules that we can’t do anything. Again, if people would behave themselves, you wouldn’t have to have all these rules.”
On how he keeps up with the influx of young coaches in the college game:
“Well, let me ask you something: who do you like best – your brother or your grandaddy?”
Listen here to Bowden on WFNZ in Charlotte
Tags: ACC Football, ACC Media Days, all time winningest coaches in college football, BCS, Bobby Bowden, Florida State Seminoles football
