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TQ - The best way to handle the FSU situation
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CollegeFootballNews.com
Posted Dec 1, 2009
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Tuesday Question: How would you have handled the Florida State situation?
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Tuesday Question ... Dec. 1
How would you have handled the Florida State
situation?
Pete
Fiutak
Q: How would you have handled the Florida State situation?
A: I'd have offered to flip
the script.
The program had to move on because of recruiting and
simply taking the necessary steps forward under
Jimbo Fisher, who's widely considered one of the top
up-and-coming head coaching prospects once he
actually becomes a head coach. I'd have told Bobby
Bowden that he could be more than just a figurehead
and more than just a guy who gets told what's going
on by the new coaching staff. I'd have told him that
he'd be used as sort of a Professor Emeritus and
able to be like a co-head coach. Fisher has been
doing a lot of the nuts and bolts stuff anyway, and
now it would be time to let him make the program his
and give him the final decisions. However, allow
Bowden to be used as a special council to the
coaching staff.
Would that be uncomfortable? At times, maybe, but I
just don't have the heart to boot him out just
because the team and the program he made into what
it is now went 6-6. Could he handle not being the
head man? That would be tough for any coach with his
résumé and legacy, but he would need to do some
soul-searching and wonder if he's really helping. I
got the sense that he doesn't want things to get
worse under his watch and that he felt it would be
time for a change, but I'd still want him to be a
part of things. If Fisher wasn't happy about it,
then so be it.
In this case, yeah, Bobby Bowden is bigger than
Florida State football. He is Florida State
football. You don't tell him what to do; he tells
you how things are going to be. In the end, I'd cave
to whatever he wanted to do. He's Bobby Bowden, and
I'm not.
Richard
Cirminiello
Q: How would you have handled the Florida State situation?
A: I’d have booked the first flight to Dallas and begin tapping into my inner-Jerry Jones.
Jones, if you recall, is the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, who had the courage and good sense to pull the plug on Tom Landry, the only coach in organization history, back in 1988. Things had gotten stale in Big D, so Jones made the unpopular firing and replaced Landry with Jimmy Johnson, who’d go on to bring the franchise a Super Bowl just a few years later. Florida State is today where the Cowboys were two decades ago, mired in a vicious cycle of mediocrity. And the only way to break it is through a change at the top.
Listen, I understand the sensitivity of the process and the legend of Bobby Bowden, but how much longer is this permitted to go on in Tallahassee? Tenure may apply to the professors at the university, but it sure as heck shouldn’t apply to the coaches in the athletic department no matter how venerable they might be. In a profession that puts a high value on victories, Bowden has been failing at his job for almost a decade, and getting paid handsomely to do it. Where in any walk of life do underperforming, well-paid, high-profile individuals get to decide when it’s time to pack up their belongings?
In the most dignified way possible, someone in that Seminole administration
had to tell Bowden that the train has reached its final stop. It’s time to begin a new chapter in Florida State football. If he resisted, he needed to be relieved of his duties immediately. Have you watched this team in the last couple of years? There’s no reason to believe things are miraculously going to get better. Allowing Bowden to dictate to the school is no longer fair to the players, the fans, or the community, which puts an awful lot of time, money, and sweat equity into this program. Enough already.
Michael Bradley
Q: How would you have handled the Florida State situation?
A:
This is a tough one for me, because I’m one of the people who believes Bowden has done so much for the Florida State program that he should be allowed to coach until he leaves the football building with a toe tag, if that’s what he wants. The problem is that after the loss to Florida Saturday, Bowden himself expressed some doubts about what it was he thought was best for himself and the program, and that’s where things start to get tricky. It’s one thing to be adamant and passionate about your status. It’s another to have some doubts. Once that happens, the program becomes vulnerable. Everybody knows Bowden won’t be coaching in 2011, so bringing him back for a final farewell tour isn’t necessarily the best idea. Bowden may not have been the most engaged head coach around for the past several years, but he was an effective image of the FSU team and a strong character who embodied the Seminole program. Once Bowden expressed doubts after the Florida game, he opened the door to skepticism about his role should he stick around, and that’s dangerous to a team these days.
Had Bowden stood up after the win and said, “Heck, yes, I’ll be back next year,” it would be hard to think about removing him. But when a coach talks about “soul searching,” things change. FSU could bring Bowden back as a figurehead next year and stand him on the sideline in his big hat and let him listen to everything that’s being transmitted on the headphones, but that wouldn’t be fair to anybody. Some might argue that Bowden’s basically been doing that for the past decade. The difference is that this time everybody would know that he’s just hanging around. While another year on the sidelines would give opponents the opportunity to pay homage to Bowden, by season’s end (or maybe earlier), he would be less a sympathetic figure and more a pathetic one. Unless Bowden is so committed to a final season that he would arm-wrestle any trustee who stands in his way – still a possibility – it’s time to cut the cord and move on. But if Bowden still wanted it, he deserved it.
However, you shouldn't have wavered, Bobby, because that
didn't do anybody any good.
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