For the first time in a long time, it was a great night for the Bowden family.
While patriarch Bobby Bowden was staging a big comeback in Chapel Hill on Thursday night, middle son Terry Bowden kept his feel-good train chugging right along.
Terry, the first-year North Alabama head coach improved to 9-0 with a 62-27 victory at Valdosta State, which basically clinches a Gulf South Conference title and NCAA Division II playoff berth for the Lions.
In the 10 years between setting up shop in Florence, Ala., on New Year's Day and resigning at Auburn in the middle of the 1998 season, Bowden held a wide variety of jobs as a football broadcaster, always itching to get back on the sidelines.
His rebirth couldn't have started any better with the top-ranked Lions.
For the first time in Bowden's coaching career he's at the helm of a No. 1 team. That's something new for him, but it isn't for North Alabama. The Lions previously occupied the top spot in 27 consecutive polls on their way to three national titles from 1993 to 1995.
Bowden and his younger brother Jeff, who serves as one of his assistants, have engineered the undefeated record with the help of several quality transfers stepping down in class. He brought in 22 players from Division I programs. Bowden's primary pass-catch combo consists of quarterback Harrison Beck (Nebraska, N.C. State) and wide receiver Preston Parker (Florida State).
Other key transfers include: safeties Quinton Andrews (West Virginia) and J.J. Johnson (Marshall), wide receivers Mico McSwain (Mississippi) and T.J. Porter (Pittsburgh) and defensive end Brandon Fanney (Alabama).
With that kind of quality, perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise that the Lions have won eight of their last nine games by at least 17 points.
Bowden has had previous experience in the lower rungs of college football. As a 26-year-old, he quickly built a winner at Salem College (W.V.), before doing the same at Samford University (Ala.), on his way to landing the Auburn job in 1993.
Any guesses on where he'll end up next?
And while we're at it . . . what's Tommy up to these days?
I wish he would wind up at West Virginia. Gomer Pyle needs to go.
Well, this should put him in line to be the next coach at Clemson!
Give him a couple of years and he will run in into the ground just like he did @ Auburn.........
When you said "Lions," I thought you meant Penn State considering they don't schedule much more than Division II opponents all year.
so just like at Auburn, he can win with other people's players...