I’m not wrong very often. But when I am, I will admit it.
Boy, was I wrong.
In this same spot last week, I predicted that Penn State would get a BCS bid. Strike one. I also predicted that Florida would beat Alabama. Strike two. Finally, I predicted that Pitt would take down undefeated Cincinnati. Strike three.
As it turned out, Penn State got shut out in its bid for a BCS game, Alabama crushed Florida and Pitt’s defense collapsed in a 45-44 loss to Cincinnati. This week, I will make no predictions. However, in today’s edition of Morelli OnLion, we’ll take a closer look at the retirement of Bobby Bowden and look ahead to Penn State’s date with LSU in the Capital One Bowl.
Let’s start with the retirement of a legend.
Florida State’s Bobby Bowden lost his fire for the game.
(Photo courtesy of Blue White Illustrated).
Bowden’s Time Had Come
For Florida State coach Bobby Bowden, it’s almost over.
His run with the Seminoles is coming to a somewhat ugly end, certainly nothing like the iconic coach imagined. There are those who will tell you that it’s unfair, that Bowden deserves better.
I’m here to tell you otherwise.
Bowden is getting exactly what he deserves.
This is a case of someone who was unable to walk away when he was at the top of his game. The Seminoles won national titles in 1993 and 1999. Bowden hoped that more would come. They didn’t. Just a mere 10 years since his last national championship, Bowden is finished. In 34 years at the helm of the Seminoles, he captured those aforementioned titles, coached a pair of Heisman Trophy winners and won 12 Atlantic Coast Conference titles. But in recent years, his undisciplined players got into scrapes with the law and his program was caught in an academic scandal. Worse yet, his teams started losing. And losing. And losing some more.
Please don’t try to tell me that winning doesn’t matter. It does. I don’t care if you coach a youth soccer team or a professional football team, you should want to win. And you should want to win every game. Not just six or seven, but every single one. When you don’t have that fire in your belly anymore, you need to go. When you’re OK with losing, you need to go. When you settle for mediocrity year after year after year, you need to go.
In recent years, it was clear that Bowden had lost that fire. He no longer had a passion for the game. That trickled down to his coaching staff, to his players. That resulted in poor play on the field. In Tallahassee, the final straw was probably a 37-10 drubbing at the hands of rival Florida, a team with a coach who does not tolerate losing. As a result, the Gators are in the running for a national championship every single year. That has to sting the Seminole faithful.
After that embarrassment, the dust settled on the 2009 season. There the Seminoles stood with a ragged 6-6 record. FSU president T.K. Wetherell had seen enough. He offered Bowden an opportunity to stay. Bowden would be a goodwill ambassador, an FSU figurehead. But he would wield no true power, have no say in the day-to-day football operations.
That was all she wrote.
His career will end with either 388 or 389 wins, putting him in second place behind Joe Paterno. He will coach his final game — the Gator Bowl game — in his home state of Florida. Then, he will ride off into the sunset. Instead of game-planning next fall, Bowden will sit in the stadium that bears his name and watch a young coach named Jimbo Fisher lead the Seminoles. The Seminoles will be better. They’ll be more disciplined. They’ll post more victories. Why? Because they’ll have a coach with the fire in his belly. Eventually, Fisher will get the once-proud program back to where it was.
As we watched the fall of Bowden and the Florida State program, there are a couple of lessons for both Penn State and Paterno.
First, succession plans do not work. When FSU announced that Fisher would eventually take over for Bowden, many of the pundits applauded that decision. But there was never anything set in stone, other than a $5 million guarantee that Fisher would be head coach by 2011.
The second lesson is that when a program falls upon hard times, it’s usually pretty difficult to pull itself up by its bootstraps and begin winning without a change.
Unlike Bowden, Paterno weathered a similar storm following the 2004 season. The Nittany Lions had suffered four losing seasons in five years. It was reported by several media outlets that Paterno was asked to step down. He refused. With his job on the line in 2005, his Nittany Lions responded with an 11-1 record. That season was capped, you’ll remember, by a thrilling 26-23 triple overtime win over Bowden’s Seminoles in the Orange Bowl.
Since that game, both programs have gone in opposite directions. Over the next four seasons, Bowden’s squads went 29-22 and haven’t been back to a BCS bowl game. Paterno’s teams have racked up a 39-12 mark and went to the Rose Bowl last season.
Bowden’s departure assures Paterno of the all-time wins record. It does not assure him that his departure won’t resemble Bowden’s.
One thing is certain, though.
If the wins keep coming, he won’t have to worry about it.
Penn State Coach Joe Paterno and his Nittany Lions are headed to the Capital One Bowl.
(Photo courtesy of Blue White Illustrated).
No BCS for PSU
The Penn State Nittany Lions waited all day Sunday, only to be disappointed. The Lions were shut out of a BCS bid and landed in the Capital One Bowl, where they will face LSU on Jan. 1.
It certainly was a disappointment for the Lions and coach Paterno, who had hopes of getting a BCS bid. But the Fiesta Bowl went with Boise State and TCU. The Orange Bowl opted for Iowa over the Nittany Lions. The Hawkeyes will face Georgia Tech in Miami.
It says here that the Lions (10-2) are in the right place. Their weak non-conference schedule didn’t merit a BCS game. Penn State’s non-con slate of Akron, Temple, Syracuse and Eastern Illinois came back to haunt the team.
Penn State beat three bowl-eligible teams — Temple, Northwestern and Michigan State.
In the coming weeks, we will look back at the 2009 season and break down the matchup with LSU.
Chris Morelli is the award-winning editor of Blue White Illustrated, a weekly publication devoted to Penn State athletics. He is also a regular on “Sports Central,” which airs on ESPN Radio in Altoona and State College. E-mail him at morellionlion@gmail.com. This column does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of BWI’s writers or publisher.