Haste misplaced as 'Noles face delicate Bowden debate

Bobby Bowden will reach his 80th birthday on Nov. 8. And if he's concerned that he won't be Florida State's head football coach when he turns 81, it didn't show when we talked on Monday.

In fact, if you're thinking that Florida State's current struggles (2-4) combined with Bowden's age are an obvious recipe for retirement, you might be surprised with what Division I-A football's No. 2 all-time winner (with 384 victories) has to say.

Bowden believes, quite simply, that retirement will be on his timetable. There is a plan in place. He's working on a one-year contract; at the end of the year, Bowden will make a decision and inform President T.K. Wetherell and athletic director Randy Spetman. If Bowden decides to retire, offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher will be elevated to head coach. If not, Bowden will return for his 35th season as head coach with a team, he strongly believes, will be good enough to compete for an ACC championship. If Fisher is not the head coach in January 2011, he gets $5 million.

"Right now I think you know where I'm leaning," Bowden said. "I'm leaning toward coming back [next season]."

That's the plan.

Bowden understands the plan is not popular right now with elements of his fan base. Those fans believe that Bowden, for all of his great accomplishments, is simply not the coach he once was. Therefore, if he won't go voluntarily, he should be removed as the head of the program he built into a national powerhouse.

They point out that Florida State has not been in the national championship discussion since 2000, when the Seminoles lost to Oklahoma in the BCS championship game. They point to the fact that Bowden was allowed to put his son Jeff in charge of the offense when Mark Richt left to become head coach at Georgia in 2001. There is a faction of the Florida State fan base that believes the program has never recovered.

Those same fans look at the NFL Draft and see Florida State's name rarely comes up on the first day anymore. That is evidence enough that recruiting has slipped.

Those same fans also know this: A few hours away from Tallahassee, Urban Meyer's Florida Gators have won two of the last three national championships and are poised to win a third. Down in Miami, Randy Shannon seems to have the Hurricanes back on track after several years in the wilderness. South Florida beat Florida State in Tallahassee and these fans want to know: Are we now fourth in the state?

"I've been through this before," Bowden said from his office in Tallahassee, less than 48 hours after his 34th Florida State team lost to Georgia Tech (49-44) to drop to 0-3 in the ACC. "When you get to be 65 they start talking about your age. If your team plays well you are veteran coach who's pretty smart. If you team doesn't play well you're too old and you're not very smart. At some point you become immune to it."

But in reality, Bobby Bowden really hasn't been in this position before. When they hung him in effigy at West Virginia in 1974, Bowden was 46 and was just getting started on his Hall of Fame career

Second of all, Florida State has never been 0-3 in the ACC since joining the league in 1992.

And when Bowden struggled early in his career, he had not put together one of the best runs in the history of college football. From 1987 to 2000, Florida State had 14 consecutive seasons of top five finishes in the AP poll. In that respect, Bobby Bowden's toughest opponent these days is his own legacy.

"I don't think that will ever be done again," said Richt, now in his ninth season as Georgia's head coach.

There are other reasons that these are uncharted waters for Bowden. Jim Smith, a member of the Florida State Board of Trustees, made headlines twice last week. First he said "enough is enough" and suggested strongly that Bowden announce he would be retiring at the end of the year. Then Smith, obviously not content, compared the possibility of forcing Bowden out to "putting down your old dog. You know it's the right thing to do but you sure feel bad about it."

Wetherell, who played for Bowden and will himself retire this summer, released a statement reminding everyone that a succession plan for Bowden remains in place.

'We're going to fix this. I can see it,' Bobby Bowden says of the Seminoles' slumping program. (Getty Images)

While his critics see a program out of control and hopelessly in decline, Bowden sees something else. He sees a program that is on the verge of breaking out. He saw a dropped pass in the end zone on the last play of a 38-34 loss to Miami. After the team squeaked by Jacksonville State 19-9, Florida State went to Provo, Utah, and absolutely destroyed BYU 54-28 when the Cougars were ranked No. 7. There were critical turnovers in the stunning loss to USF (17-7). The losses at Boston College (28-21) and Georgia Tech (49-44) were one-possession games.

"It's not like we're getting trounced," Bowden said. "It has come down to if they score they win, if we stop them we win. Against Georgia Tech we had a chance to go up two scores and we missed it. That wishbone [Georgia Tech runs the option] doesn't like to be down two scores. But we didn't do it."

There have been wide-spread rumors of dissention on the staff, specifically between Fisher, the offensive coordinator and head-coach-in-waiting, and Chuck Amato, who holds the title of executive head coach and is a longtime Bowden loyalist. Both men have publicly denied the conflict, as does Bowden.

Bowden does agree with one argument made by his critics: While he deserves credit and deference for building the Florida State program, if there are cracks in the foundation he should not be allowed to stay on if he can't stop it from eventually crumbling.

"If I thought I was hurting Florida State and that I couldn't do it any more, I would walk away," Bowden said. "But that's not what I see right now."

But this much is clear: Florida State is a football program that is trying to delicately straddle an ever-growing fence between its past and its future. On one side are Bowden and the strong belief that he has earned the opportunity to write the final chapter of his legendary career.

On the other side is the equally strong belief that the time has come to turn the page. Bowden has given much to Florida State, critics admit. But at the same time, Florida State has also given much to Bowden. It is time for both sides to recognize this and figure out a way to keep this from ending badly.

But it ended badly for Alabama's Bear Bryant, Bowden's hero. Bryant was in failing health when he decided to retire in December 1982. Just 43 days later he was dead.

It ended badly for Grambling's Eddie Robinson. There has never been a more revered figure in the game than Robinson. But at the end even his own players, who loved him, had to tell Coach Rob that it was time to go.

After 384 career victories, 311 of them coming at Florida State, Bobby Bowden cannot and should not be shoved out the door. That would be unconscionable. Winning is important but it's not that damned important.

But as soon as this season is over, a huge dose of clarity needs to be injected into the Florida State football program. A news conference should be called to announce one of two things: 1) Bobby Bowden is retiring, or 2) Bowden is coming back for his farewell season, after which Fisher will take over.

Bowden believes strongly that he can turn this thing around. He has to look no further than to the man who sits just above him on the all-time wins list.

"Look at what they tried to do to Joe [Paterno]," Bowden said of the Penn State head coach. "They tried to run him out of town because they said he was too old. He told them to be patient and he could fix it. And he did. That's the way I feel. We're going to fix this. I can see it."

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