Former Auburn and Akron head coach Terry Bowden will join the Clemson staff as an unpaid graduate intern, CFT has learned. The news was first reported by TigerNet on Monday.
Bowden, 63, will pursue a Master’s degree in athletic leadership at Clemson University and volunteer for Dabo Swinney‘s staff while studying. Ironically, Bowden is connected to the program as his older brother, Tommy Bowden, was Clemson’s head coach before Swinney, and it was his mid-season firing that led to the then-wide receivers coach Swinney becoming the interim head coach for the final seven games of the 2008 season and, a decade-plus later, a future Hall of Fame coach with two national championships and a $93 million contract.
Terry Bowden spent the past seven seasons as Akron’s head coach, going 35-54 with the Zips before his firing last December. His 2015 team went 8-5 and won the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, and his 2017 team claimed the MAC East Division championship, the program’s first since 2005.
Prior to Akron, Bowden went 47-17-1 as Auburn’s head coach from 1993-98. His 1993 team went 11-0 amid NCAA sanctions, and his ’97 team went 10-3 and appeared in the SEC Championship. Bowden resigned after a 1-5 start to the 1998 season.
Outside of the FBS level, Bowden has been incredibly successful at three different schools. Starting at age 27, Bowden went 19-13 with a West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletic Conference as Salem University’s head coach from 1983-85, went 45-23-1 with a trip to the Division I-AA semifinals at Samford University from 1987-92, and went 29-9 with three trips to the Division II playoffs at the University of North Alabama from 2009-11.