There has been a copious amount of talk dedicated this offseason as to whether this will be Bobby Bowden‘s final season at Florida State.
One school of thought is that Bowden feels like he’s rebuilding something special and wants to hang around through the 2010 season to see it come to fruition.
Another school has Bowden leaving after this season, especially in light of the talk of defensive coordinator Mickey Andrews leaving after 2009 gaining steam. The thinking goes, Bowden will go out together with Andrews, leaving the program in the hands of offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher -- who will receive $5 million if he’s not the head coach in January of 2011.
While that’s all well and good, and some nice conjecture, the son of Bowden, North Alabama head coach Terry Bowden, went straight to the source for the answer.
Speaking to the Sporting News, the younger Bowden said he asked his father about his immediate future. Needless to say, the elder Bowden was unequivocal as far as his 2010 plans are concerned.
“That’s false,” Terry Bowden said when given the premise that his father would retire at the end of the season. “How do I know? Because I just asked him and he told me so. He said, ‘I’m not retiring at the end of the season.’ Now there may be a new president at the school and he may not want him or (coach-in-waiting) Jimbo Fisher. We don’t know that.”
Regardless of what is being said in August, it will be interesting to see what Bowden is saying in January or February if Andrews retires and the Seminoles fail in winning their appeal against NCAA sanctions, thus costing Bowden any shot of catching and passing Joe Paterno as Div. 1-A’s all-time winningest coach.
(Tip o’ the hat to the Orlando Sentinel for the link.)